Word: witness
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...essays collected represent the years from 1977 to 1984. The later ones are the better crafted; Epstein seems to have hit perfect stride. Felicitous phrases, crisp construction, and clever cadences abound. Graced with wit, critical authority, and several rounds of silver bullets. Sheriff Epstein should make the literary delinquents quake...
LIKE THE ACTUAL conquest of the Sahara, The Conquest of the Sahara is a series of anecdotes tied around the theme of France and the desert. After reading about three or four expeditions, though, it gradually appears that they are all the same one. To wit: incompetent French officer A is appointed via government connections to lead expedition across the Sahara to Point B. He is given C Francs and D assistants, collects E colonial troops in French Algeria, and, most importantly, F camels. Along the journey treacherous native guides mislead the party, and contacts with the mysterious Tuareg people...
...diagnosed as having the disease, and a former lover (Jonathan Hadary) who takes him back "as is" to nurse him. During the play's earlier off-Broadway run, Hadary played the lover as a near saint, but has now toned down the sanctimony and emphasizes the character's wit. Hogan must storm through the show on a single note approaching hysteria. Yet he manages to find great variety, shading and humor in the role, and delivers the most powerful performance of the Broadway season...
Despite Mountbatten's massive size, the evenhanded narrative moves with enormous grace and wit. This affectionate character study of a nearly extinct species can also be read as a fascinating gloss on World War II, or as a social history of wealth and privilege in decline. It was privilege, in the end, that killed Mountbatten. His habit over the decades was to spend his summers at Classiebawn Castle, an elegant old pile he owned in the Republic of Ireland. It will stand as one of history's sad ironies that Mountbatten had never taken part in the dispute over...
...pays a high price for success, except Eliot, who pays for his failures. To compare The Class with The Group, Mary McCarthy's 1963 best seller of eight Vassar girls and how they grew, is to measure the change in public taste. McCarthy treated her Ivy maidens with defoliating wit; Segal bastes his Harvard yardbirds with sophomore-level prose: "The athletic season culminated with the many confrontations against Yale" and "While it was arguable that his interpretation of the complete Beethoven piano concerti was the best thing put on disk during the previous twelve months, it was indisputable that...