Word: abyssinian
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...manor’s opposite wing, Frederick finished his decanter of port. Sprawled across the Abyssinian carpet which reached from one end of the wood-paneled study to the other, he had been perusing his old sketchbook. It was bound in what he believed to be the finest Italian leather. Its pages were filled with what he believed to be the seeds of genius...
Gentlemen is set around A.D. 950 in a politically chaotic region of the Caucasus mountains. Our heroes are two rootless adventurers: Amram, a massive Abyssinian axman, and Zelikman, a pale, painfully skinny Frank (a kind of proto-German) who dresses in all black and carries a surgical instrument as a weapon. They are fast friends, seasoned brawlers and amateur philosophers given to terse exchanges of melancholy wit. They resemble--as all couples who stay together long enough ultimately do--Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for Godot...
...other means, both domestically and abroad," he explains, instinctively clenching and unclenching his fists. Casting a glance at a bronze statue of Alexander Pushkin, Alexei twists his mouth scornfully and tosses off some vile talk about the father of modern Russian literature, who was descended from an Abyssinian slave. "How could he be the Russian national poet?" Not that Alexei cares much for culture. After what he considers to be a lifetime of oppression, he says he's ready for war. A lathe operator by trade, his role models include Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma...
...Harlem-office decision in some ways certifies that connection. Ever since it became a prominent black area, around 1910, Harlem has been two contradictory neighborhoods-- both the Zebra Room and the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Rudolf Fisher, another Renaissance author, described the place in his novel The Walls of Jericho: It "remains for six nights a carnival, bright with the lights of theaters and night clubs...Then comes Sunday, and for a few hours Seventh Avenue...reflects that air of quiet, satisfied self-righteousness peculiar to chronic churchgoers...
...novel that begins with a man on the brink of being eaten by a crocodile stands a good chance of engaging a reader's attention. Moses Isegawa's Abyssinian Chronicles (Knopf; 462 pages; $26) not only opens with such a bang, or crunch, but also manages to sustain the narrative fireworks over a long, complex haul...