Word: code
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Morse Code. The idea of using light to convey information far predates the new fiber-optics technology demonstrated so dramatically by AT&T. Primitive man sent signals by building fires or waving torches; ships still use shuttered signal lamps to flash messages to each other. Proof that light could be sent along a curved "pipe"-like electricity flowing through a wire-was provided by British Physicist John Tyndall in 1870. He showed that light shining down on a tank of water could be carried by a stream pouring from a hole in the side of the tank to illuminate...
...remarks in public that you are "not to the manner born," only one response is dignified of a gentleman--"To hell with that shit."--assuming that you have made the proclamation with your fly fully zipped up. Or so J.P. Donleavy quips in his latest book, The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival & Manners...
...Unexpurgated Code carries this spoofing to near-fetish heights--for 289 pages, you're on the verge of uncontrollable laughter. Divided into six parts, this manual provides for all possible situations and exigencies of the social rat race: "Social Climbing," "Extinctions and Mortalities," "Vilenesses Various," "In Pursuit of Comfortable Habits," "Perils and Precautions," "Mischief and Memorabilia." The atmosphere is English manor house, gently decadent. Catalogued are innumerable pointers, all that the debonaire and naughty aristocrat must do to succeed is meticulously explained. There are rules and tips concerning accent improvement, farting in public, horsemanship, ass-kissing, being a big shot...
...this irreverence suggests that Donleavy is himself a sort of Sebastian Dangerfield, and in fact The Ginger Man was written with highly autobiographical intentions. In the 25 years since its publication, however, Donleavy has changed considerably. The dandyish narrator of The Unexpurgated Code is far removed from Donleavy the young novelist...
...surprising then, that The Unexpurgated Code should display such unmitigated humor. On the surface, it would seem that the old Sebastian Dangerfield had won out in Donleavy. Yet somewhere between the lines of the narrator's counsels and the social spoofing, you sense in Donleavy an inverted romanticism, a genuine attachment to the order and chivalry of the aristocracy, a sadness that living is not what he would conceive it or hope it to be. In the jacket photo, Donleavy's face is wary, truculent even, thoroughly distrustful. You suspect the jaunty mien, the gentlemanly deportment, is a carefully constructed...