Word: staling
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...characters, Ann Deveria has the greatest potential for sparking the reader's interest. She is an adulteress whose husband has sent her to the ocean to "cool the passions" and forget her lover. Unfortunately, she remains underdeveloped along with the rest of the characters and only comes across as stale and unreal. Then there is the 15-year-old girl trying to cure a strange psychological malady with sea bathing. Though she becomes involved with an older man in the novel's only love scene, the description fails to be either erotic or touching...
...real horror in Blindness is therealization that humanity is not in control ofitself--that at the root of all hope, ambition anddreams lies an apathetic demon shrouded in ablinding white nothingness. This stale emptinessis unnoticed by the seeing. Eyes allow one tocover oneself in images, to construct oneselfcomfortably out of the things one sees--to blindoneself, in essence, to the true nature ofhumanity. When sight is gone, and the eye isforever turned inward, the horrifying epiphanythat life is white, pure nothing becomes, inBlindness, the deepest horror imaginable
...staying on all through lecture and toasty winter hats are being recklessly pulled over glued-to-the-head baseball caps. First-years, though, have quickly discovered the age-old freshman weapon for combatting the Cambridge cold. With the aid of stir-fry from HDS, grease from Tommy's and stale beer from that party in Pennypacker, dozens of first-years are already well ahead of pace to safely reach the "Freshman 15" mark by Thanksgiving, and have that extra layer of body-fat for the blistery winter months...
...jokes find the perfect balance between quirkiness and truth: "Jews have their professions marked out for them. But so do Gentiles. Gentiles are great in certain fields--like coal-mining. Ever seen a Jew coal-miner? With a little light on his yarmulke?" He also manages to take stale issues and still make them mildly amusing. The O.J. Simpson trial for instance, "proved that the innocent until proven guilty rule no longer applies. Now, you're innocent until proven guilty and even after you're proven guilty, you're still innocent." And as for President Clinton, he simply makes references...
...hair is pressed flat and she pastes a naughty girl look on her face. Bullock, as usual is irresistible, her nice-girl image hasn't changed since Speed. Unfortunately, it is their good looks that are sure to draw the crowds, not their acting, mainly because of the stale lines and cliched characters they're stuck with...