Word: sordidly
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...China in the first half of this century. What's more, he's done it in a way which masterfully brings together two awkwardly coexistent branches of the historical novel tradition. Combining the solid factual background of authors like Tuchman or even Michener with the torrid, and sometime, sordid, human details of John Jakes and Harold Robbins. Hersey manages both to inform and to entertain throughout almost 700 pages. And he weaves his complex mosaic around one central, compelling theme--the hidden disaster embedded in the "offer" by the West, and "acceptance" by China, of the "forbidden fruits" of modern...
Chief among the book's failings is the author's inability to rise above the sordid details of his characters' lives and provide the reader with at least a glimpse of the motives behind the deviant behavior. Those interested in a fictional handling of this cultural schizophrenia would do better to turn back to an earlier work, Judith Rossner's sensitive, albeit sensational, Looking for Mr. Goodbar--or else wait for a treatment more skilled than Theroux...
...book chronicles in excruciating detail the sordid Machiavellianism of the Comintern during Stalin's dictatorship, focusing on its already well--documented betrayal of the Republican Spanish government during the 1935-1938 civil war against Generslisimo Francisco Franco. It also shows that Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country" at the expense of the international resolutionary movement can lead only to the abandonment of worker democracy and the disintegration into state capitalism. Under state capitalism, communist countries must oppress their own workers in order to compete with capitalist nations. The Soviet Union had followed this path away from genuine socialism...
...COURSE, the privacy concerns of many of the parties involved--not least the two women--far outweigh the public's need to learn the details of this sordid story. It is important that the University and the press understand how traumatic it is for victims to stand up to their harassers...
...Hummel to bring out the moral ambiguities of seemingly clearcut moral issues. Admittedly, Miss Julie is a manipulative coquette who delights in ordering Jean to kiss her feet and be her dance partner. Yet as Dishy's performance illustrates, Julie is also a pitiable character, a girl with a sordid past and an emotionally empty present. Similarly, Norris' refreshingly human portrayal of Jean transcends the stereotype of the noble savage and simple Marxist social commentary. While Jean admittedly experiences humiliation as a servant of aristocrats, it is not Julie--but rather Jean himself--who is in great part responsible...