Word: tragical
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...GREAT WHITE HOPE. James Earl Jones exudes enormous vitality as the tragic hero of Howard Sackler's play, which is based on the triumphs and trials of Jack Johnson, the first Negro heavyweight champion. The drama has the scope of a minor saga, but Edwin Sherin has directed it as if it were a stampede; all decibels and no deftness...
...cultivating friendship with the local people, who were happy to have a protector against the marauding Philistine tribesmen, even if for this he demanded tribute. He foraged far and wide, bringing retribution where it was due and giving succour where it was needed." Even in one of the most tragic defeats of Hebrew history-the futile defense of Jerusalem against the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70-Jews displayed a fanatic resourcefulness. Making early use of the fifth column, they sent into the Roman ranks supposedly disaffected citizens who offered to lead the besieging troops through Jerusalem's gates...
...agonizing separation. His next amorous adventure, initiated by Beefy when they both turn up at Trinity College in Dublin, is with a poor working-class girl named Breda. For that, he and Beefy are both booted from college. An engagement to wealthy Miss Fitzdare ends in a tragic riding accident. And, trapped into an ugly, upper-class London marriage, he is further betrayed by his scheming wife. Always Balthazar is seduced and somehow left abandoned. Always he retreats a little further into the elegant prison of his refined sensibilities...
While the overall tone of the book is tragic and almost elegiac, the individual scenes are often hilarious and demonstrate Donleavy's adeptness at using his lyrical Joycean prose to explore human emotions. A scene of touching pathos, for example, is broken up when Balthazar is discovered naked and feverishly ill in Breda's bed by her employer's wife. The female fight that follows is unmatched in literature for its comic ferocity. Hair curlers are grabbed, bellies butted, Balthazar's breakfast food spilled, bottles of urine knocked over, dresses ripped-all while Balthazar lies abed...
...painting. When Culture Minister Andre Malraux decided to redecorate the gallery and install in it the museum's collection of French paintings, the first question was what could possibly replace La Giaconda's enigmatic smile? The answer, decided Director Andre Parrot and Curator Michel Laclotte, was the tragic clown figure, Gilles, painted in 1720 by Antoine Watteau. And surprisingly, the replacement so far has met with nothing but approval...