Word: tracing
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...thirty years. They intersect, gravitate around each other, spin away into lonely emptiness while a dozen minor characters drift around these central constellations. They construct galaxies and float apart with the humble wonder we feel when we muse on the infinity of the sky, in oceanic silence, and trace the impersonal yet poignant movement of the stars. Hazzard sees things in two planes, as both personal emotion and tragedy, life through the wrong end of a telescope, transparently removed--almost mythologized...
Joseph Conrad is the only accurate historian Naipaul finds, and his fiction is the subject of the fourth essay, "Conrad's Darkness." He offers Naipaul solidity: well-considered ideas that have been tested, conclusions which Naipaul can trace to their roots. His writing is a welcome change from the rhetorical fantasies of Generals Mobutu of Zaire and Peron of Argentina. "Nothing is rigged in Conrad. He doesn't remake countries. He chose, as we now know, incidents from real life; and he meditated on them...
...start in just one of the body's billions of cells, triggered by a stray bit of radiation, a trace of toxic chemical, perhaps a virus or a random error in the transcription of the cell's genetic message. It can lie dormant for decades before striking, or it can suddenly attack. Once on the move, it divides to form other abnormal cells, outlaws that violate normal genetic restraints. The body's immune system, normally alert to the presence of alien cells, fails to respond properly; its usually formidable defense units refrain from moving in and destroying the intruders. Unlike...
Even the Old Farmer's Almanac could not have foreseen it all. Barely a trace of snow in New England, yet mounds of it down in Dixie. Norfolk, Va., accumulated twice as much snow as Burlington, Vt, or Portland, Me., and about one-third more than Chicago. Florida too was taking its licks. In early March, temperatures plummeted below freezing, putting a squeeze on the citrus crop, and tornadoes cut across the southeast part of the state. Up North folks were trying to decide whether to pack away mufflers and mittens after spring-in-December readings...
...American presence in the city creates tension. American officers in Heidelberg speak little or no German, and their wives rarely leave the base to venture into the city surrounding them. American boys play football on the Neckarvise, the grassy bank of the river. On a Sunday afternoon, no trace remains of last night's cowboys or clowns, only docile families, discreet and not-so-discreet sweethearts, and decrepit ice cream peddlers. The Germans don't play American football or drive Mercedes, and they resent the wealthy foreigners who make no attempt to learn their language. Although the Germans respect American...