Word: welters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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What happened? The first clue appears on the title page, where the word LETTERS is built up from a welter of small letters that, when properly viewed, spell the following: "an old time epistolary novel by seven fictitious drolls & dreamers each of which imagines himself actual." Letters made up of letters, fiction made up of fictions, Chinese boxes diminishing to emptiness. Such diminution is what the novel is about. The 772 pages that follow thus constitute a stunningly obsessive exercise in inflatio ad absurdum...
Attempting to preserve unity in this welter of people and subplots, Clark resorts to some by now familiar techniques. She cuts rapidly back and forth between characters and blends past, present and future: "Right now she was still in the same ugly, dun-colored frame house on a side street in Michigan, feeling poorly as usual, without a thought of setting out for anywhere, and a certain southbound pair of hikers were still at the Canadian end of the Long Trail, a long way from the Boonton crossing where a very different couple would shortly be murdered. Not that...
...impossible not to wonder why the nation has got caught up in such a welter of war lore. True, some keen public curiosity needs no special explanation. After all, most Americans now over age 34 experienced the war in civvies if not in uniform: the war is their own story. There are, however, some other specific reasons for the new intensity of interest...
...welter of recriminations, sadly enough, a crucial OAU report warning of "impending disaster" for Africa's deteriorating economies was given short shrift. The perfunctory debate over the study, which recommended the creation of a Common Market for the continent, tended to justify a sad remark by Liberian President William Tolbert. Most issues, concluded the OAU host and conference chairman, had been "decisively unaddressed...
...newly-elected mayor of a large American city has numerous problems he has to cope with. Neighborhoods are run down, the transportation system is a shambles, and housing is scarce. Having made a welter of campaign promises to get elected, he now has to deliver, and he needs a staff to help him. Where does he turn...