Word: wifely
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...turned Russia's intelligentsia against the Soviet regime. He began planning his escape. His pretext for traveling abroad was perfect. How could Moscow deny a Soviet writer the opportunity to research a book on Lenin's stay in Britain? Kuznetsov transferred his Russian royalty payments to his wife and nine-year-old son. After photographing the pages of his unpublished works, he sewed the 35-mm. film into the lining of his coat. Into his suitcase Kuznetsov crammed copies of his published works* and other manuscripts...
...swimming under water. I have to mention all this so as to make it clear just how serious a matter it was and that no one else was, or could be, involved in my plans. I beg the Soviet Government not to persecute my mother, my son, my wife or my personal secretary. It is bad enough for them already, and it will be worse still, because my earnings were their only means of support. I beg you not to confiscate their possessions and not to deprive them of their accommodation. I swear that they knew nothing...
...Cariou is first-rate as the sisters' brother Andrey, who loses control of the household to his adulterous wife. He gives up his dream of becoming a famous university professor, and contents himself with being secretary to his wife's lover on the local county agriculture committee--a post so petty that he has to bolster his pride by berating a subordinate for not addressing him a "Your Honor," and--like Abe Fortas--seek solace in going off by himself to play the violin. Cariou makes him genuine, well-meaning, and pathetic; and I'd swear he really puts...
Roberta Maxwell misses little in her portrayal of Andrey's fiancee and, later, cuckolding wife Natasha, a vile and vulgar creature who ends up holding all the reins, and who insists on pretentiously flaunting her inadequate knowledge of French. Few scenes in all drama are as chillingly cruel as the one in which Natasha upbrades the loyal octogenarian nanny Anfisa and proceeds to advocate kicking her out because the old woman can't work enough, both does not convey sufficient age. (It occurs to me that director Kahn might have improved his production by switching the roles of Misses Maxwell...
...second emphasis, in its examination of insanity, The Four-Gated City offers one such vindication. For Lessing, the Coldridge townhouse is an elaborate metaphorical conceit--at its base, in its cellar, it house Linda, Mark's mad wife. In another novel produced during another time, Linda would have probably been left to her solitary fate--most probably, like Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway, Linda would have simply destroyed herself. At best, she could only hope to remain locked up for life, half-mad, in a Gothic tower. But, in this novel, Linda is treated as a prophet as she conducts Martha...