Word: witness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...they're wrong: he is a working American moralist. He hates the cheap and the shoddy; the bad values, the bad art, the bad people. His hero, Travis McGee, who hates all of it for him, hates with intelligence, an acuity, and a ruthless wit...
...London. A full-time writer from the age of 22, Johnson turned out 27 novels, the last, A Bonfire, to be published in the U.S. next month. Though her books did not sell as well as those written by Snow, her second husband, critics praised them for satirical wit and deft malice...
Robbins' longer work, Piano Pieces, was an immediate hit. In it he gives some deservedly obscure Tchaikovsky piano works the elegance of Chopin and catches the bursting talents of more young stars. The ballet's best pas de deux shows the fleet wit of Heather Watts and Bart Cook, who always seem to see the double side of life. The choreographer also notes the rippling serenity of Kyra Nichols, who sometimes seems unaware of the audience. Most of all, Robbins shows off Ib Andersen. Since he has four new roles, this might even be called an Ib Andersen...
Worse still, the world's great love affairs would never have been put to paper. Heloise would not have written Abelard; Abelard would not have written back. Ben Franklin would have quashed his flirting wit; James Joyce his raging jealousies. There would have been none of the sublime torture of the letters of Swift and Vanessa; none of the zest of Franz Liszt...
...letter is, after all: a literary form, like a sonnet. It is not as defined as a sonnet. Still one looks for things to be said in letters that are not said elsewhere, expecting truth most of all. Even falsity in letters divulges a kind of truth-the false wit employed in writing to a clever enemy, the false cheer to a dull friend, the false authority to children, the false self-confidence to colleagues. Letters conceal almost nothing, which accounts for their power. Those few who have done them well ought never have been told: Don't write...