Word: turgidity
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...good material. He lets things dawdle when briskness would be a boon, and defeats the gung-ho efforts of Dern and other worthy actors. Citizen Ruth means to evoke such '40s comedies as The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, but it is less Preston Sturges than depressed and turgid...
After wading through the turgid prose of Peninsula's most recent issue, I realized that it attracts particularly rabid ideologues who seem utterly unable to infuse any of their pieces with even a hint of wit, irony or intelligence. It is that failure, not just their offensive rantings, which constitutes the real obscenity. --Lorraine A. Lezama The writer is a former Crimson editorialist...
...fact, far from being simple and banal, the final monologue is turgid and confusing. The closing act abandons comedy altogether for a sentimental affirmation of life as something to cherish by mixing a heavy dose of Thoreau with Davis' own ardent declamations. The rather opaque passages from "Higher Laws," "Solitude" and other essays are further obscured by Davis' casual commentary scattered throughout. When finally he concludes that he is "everything God intended in man," he is everyone from Jesus to Ghandi to Ghengis Khan, the poetics ring hollow...
This same dynamic has dominated our campus press as well. Mentally exhausted by turgid texts, most students read about campus affairs for relaxation instead of serious engagement. Style dominates substance as journalists and editorialists skewer for the sake of skewering. This trend been demonstrated occasionally in the case of the Progressive Undergraduate Council Coalition, an organization trashed by several commentators who seized on its minor peccadilloes while ignoring its larger promise. In the midst of a relentlessly critical and uncooperative press, student groups ranging from the Ethnic Studies Action Committee to the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Alliance have found it difficult...
...Betrayed, but cogent drama in neither. His favorite plot hook, sexual mutilation, bore rancid fruit in Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct and Sliver. At least those three had some sick kick to them. But if his women characters aren't psychos or sex-crime victims, the scripts get shrill and turgid. After an hour of naughty chat in Showgirls, you'll start hoping for somebody to kill somebody...