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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Chang, a Chinese engineering student who comes to the U.S. in 1947 for his doctorate; his wife Helen; and his sister Theresa. The Changs initially disdain the lack of tradition they describe as "typical American" behavior, but soon they are stir-frying hot dogs. They also fall under the spell of Grover Ding, an American-born Svengali of free enterprise who leads Ralph into a dubious fried-chicken business, seduces Helen and causes Theresa, the family loyalist, to leave home. The happy ending for the Changs comes not in abandoning the American Dream but in finding a way to make...
Various groups follow a mixed brew of Wicca (witchcraft), paganism, New Age ideas and evocations of female power, some inspired by Native American and African traditions. Though a minority enacts malevolent spell casting and magic (not Satanism, these worshipers insist), most embrace benign beliefs, especially harmony with nature. While some draw upon ancient rituals, others invent new ones...
With his scenes of back-lot baseball played in the summer twilight, Kissane captures the camaraderie and nostalgia of what has been called a "boy's game played by grown men." He writes, "the spell baseball had cast during my summers of playing catch and daydreaming could be matched by its reality, by the rhythm of its slow and complex unfolding through nine innings...
Unhappily, any attempt to spell out such guidelines seems doomed to failure. The old no-intervention-ever principle is immoral; besides, countries disregard it whenever it suits their interest or when they think they can get away with it. Any attempt to codify principles that the U.N. could make a pass at enforcing would meet insuperable resistance from nations with festering internal disputes. So decisions to intervene will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis and, like the U.S. determination not to aid the anti-Saddam rebels, usually for reasons of realpolitik. That is a messy...
...effectiveness on this base level by striving to create prose that is so stylized it appears amusing. Her writing is so laden with excessive verbiage that, in the end, the author's style, rather than plot or characterization, dominates the book. In another author, that dominance might not spell disaster, but the only response that Hart's prose provokes is laughter...