Word: void
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
AVOID, ORIGINALLY LA DISPARITION (1969), is a lipogram, an old trick dating as far back as 500 B.C. in which authors voluntarily submit to awful handicaps, arbitrarily abjuring crucial signs or symbols and making writing, always a hard task, a virtual impossibility. In A Void, this onus is particularly harsh. All consonants, from stalwart b to languishing z, can occur in normal fashion; but only a, i, o and u may fill out what is ordinarily a quorum of 26. "Huh?" you may gasp, "no ...?" Shhhh! Do not think or, God forbid, say it, at any cost...
Amid spasms of public anarchy, Anton Vowl, a Parisian insomniac in psychological discomfort, prowls his lodgings by night. Hypochondria haunts him, plus a doom that has him in thrall: "A unit is lacking. An omission, a blank, a void that nobody but him knows about, thinks about, that, flagrantly, nobody wants to know or think about. A missing link." As "panicky as a pig in an abbatoir," Vowl awaits his karma...
...translation is an astounding Anglicization of Francophonic mania, a daunting triumph of will pushing its way through imposing roadblocks to a magical country, an absurdist nirvana, of humor, pathos and loss. Go forth to your local bookstall or library, pay $24 for or borrow a copy of A Void, and savor it slowly. But stay wary and vigilant, and mind your ps and qs, to say nothing at all about your ... Aaiioouugh...
...Christmas trip to Rome instead. In the end, of course, he loses the girl, but Brookner's triumph lies in the story's resolution. Torturing his sensibilities, wasting his money, disparaging his friends, Katy nonetheless succeeds in bringing animation back to her prey. As she re-enters the void from which she came, George starts a new life...
...Hamblin, a hot-button black conservative, on "the Nazi point of view" comment that cost Christina Jeffrey a Capitol Hill job: "Being a bigot does not void your First Amendment rights." The self-styled "Black Avenger," who is syndicated to 63 stations nationwide, has also railed against gun control and even against James Brady -- "the cripple guy" -- for promoting...