Word: squalore
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Cold War Frontier. The main carryover from the earlier stories that Cornwell built up in Spy is not a character but an atmosphere: grubby realism and moral squalor, the frazzled, fatigued sensitivity of decent men obliged to betray or kill others no worse than themselves. Cornwell said recently: "I chose spying as a subject for reasons of polemic. Western democracy seems to have one unifying force: the idea that individuals are more valuable than philosophies. My intention was to write about a group of people who consciously abandon the Western principle in order to defend...
...They Cared? "We were shocked at the squalor we found," reported the Congressmen when they returned with a telling set of photographs. The tenants are "living in deplorable poverty with little evidence of concern by their millionaire landlords." Said Snyder: "We found tenants living in three-and four-room shacks with cracks in the flooring, leaking roofs, broken wood-burning cook stoves, some at least 50 years old, and no toilet facilities." Said Martin: "If I owned property like that, I'd feel it a moral obligation to make it comfortable and adequate. At least so the roof doesn...
...have switched roles. "I couldn't get along without you," Tony whines. And his manservant snarls back: "Then go and get me a glass of brandy-don't just stand there, go and get it!" Another offbeat episode has Tony and Barrett locked up in splendid squalor, playing hide-and-seek and squabbling like schoolgirls. After that, a final orgy seems tame, even pointless...
Though Monk's career has been painful and often thankless, it has also been a tortoise-and-hare race with flashier, more ingratiating men?many of whom got lost in narcotic fogs, died early in squalor and disgrace or abandoned their promise, to fall silent on their horns. Monk goes on. It is his high philosophy to be different, and having steadily ignored all advice and all the fads and vogues of jazz that made lesser musicians grow rich around him, he now reaps the rewards of his conviction gladly but without surprise. He has a dignified, three-album...
...against the lights for the hell of it, and when the car pulls up in Monk's block, he skips out and disappears into his old $39-a-month apartment. The baroness then drives home to Weehawken, where she lives in a luxurious bedroom oasis, surrounded by the reeking squalor her 32 cats have created in the other rooms...