Word: weaker
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Byatt's recent book, Angels and Insects, is a somewhat uneven pairing of two novellas. The first, "Morpho Eugenia," is a feast for naturalists. This story's butterflies and ants provide the insects of the book's title, while "The Conjugial Angel," the second and weaker novella, is organized around seances, and of course provides the title's angels. Both stories are set against the backdrop of Victorian England's exploration of the natural and supernatural world; shipwreck and return play important roles in both stories; and both shift between two lines of narration: in "Morpho Eugenia" it is between...
...Conjugial Angel" is the weaker half of Angels and Insects. The story's conceit is to pair fictional characters with figures from literary history, and Byatt has much more success in evoking the fictional characters than in breathing life into the historical ones. As a result, the novella has something of the feel of a clumsily-executed insertion of live-action characters into a well-drawn animated piece. Alfred Tennyson, his sister Emily, and the ghost of their beloved Arthur Hallam (his best friend and her fiance, and the subject of the poet's In Memoriam) move through Byatt...
...evidence gathered from animal experiments and epidemiological surveys points to the high-energy, shorter-wave ultraviolet-B portion of the sun's radiation as the main culprit in causing basal- and squamous-cell cancer. (Sunburns are also caused by UV-B radiation, wrinkles by the weaker UV-A part of the spectrum.) Since no animals other than humans and opossums suffer from malignant melanoma, researchers still do not know exactly what causes that more deadly disease. Most dermatologists have long assumed that sunburn-causing UV-B must be a greater threat than UV-A. As a result, sunscreen manufacturers originally...
...individual and national morality. In private conduct, altruism is the ideal. For a nation, it can mean ruin. In private conduct, self-interest is a suspect motive. Intervening in a fight for reasons of right is the stuff of western heroes. Intervening in a fight because you need the weaker party...
Consistency--or lack of it--has been one of Harvard's weaknesses this season. Against weaker opponents, the Crimson often sprinted out to early leads, only to lapse into lackadaisical play later in the game...