Word: sodden
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...wartime capital, for Shanxi province, 800 miles away. On assignment for TIME, White journeyed to the northern region to report on a remote battlefield where Chinese troops, contrary to expectations, had been holding their lines for months against Japanese attacks. The account of his trip through the rain-sodden Chin River Valley appeared in the Dec. 18,1939, issue. "All through the valley," White wrote, "tiny Japanese garrisons were mired in mud, unable to communicate with one another and slowly starving. When off duty, simple soldiers would sneak out of their garrison posts in twos and threes and rove...
...best of them. Says Bob Smith, explaining why he has stolen a dead friend's extensive collection of books: "I never had an education except school." Even closer to Hannah's talent is rhetorical display. A description of Levaster: "He was wretched-looking; around him was a sodden shirt printed with unlikely blazing flora. It made you think of the flag of a tropical nation that had long since collapsed from bad taste...
...knocked over the president of the university!" shouted the jubilant senior, raising his can of Schlitz in a toast as the sodden but smiling administrator pulled himself out of the dunking booth...
...throw up." The voice, belonging to Erofeev, the author-narrator of Moscow Circles, reeks of cheap vodka and ironic self-revelation. Erofeev, you see, is not merely drunk--he's metaphysically smashed, floating somewhere on the far side of oblivion, in the alcoholic backwater of heightened consciousness. His sodden satirical monologue is a latter-day Notes from Underground (and under the influence)--a profoundly funny novel that ranks as a satirical masterpiece. In his preface, Erofeev explains that "The first edition of Moscow Circles sold out fast, since it came out in only one copy." However, tongue-in-check, this...
Through the dark and cold night, he made his way across the sodden suburban field just outside Washington. The drop was right where it was supposed to be. At the base of a tree, wrapped in a green plastic garbage bag, were eight rolls of undeveloped 35-mm film containing photographs of classified American documents. When he opened the bag, he did not know that the surrounding roads of Montgomery County had been closed or that the FBI was watching. Thus did Lieut. Colonel Yevgeni Barmyantsev, 39, the acting Soviet military attaché in Washington, last week become a prominent...