Word: comically
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...mathematics teachers at the Franzosische Gymnasium was a marvelously good-humored and civilized Jewish gentleman called Dr. L. I remember him singing the role of Doctor Bartolo in a resonant bass voice at a school performance of The Barber of Seville, and doing so with irresistible comic gusto. The general assumption among former students of his was that since he had been unable to emigrate, he must have perished in a concentration camp. To the surprise of all of us, he survived World War II and was able to live to a ripe old age. The seemingly incredible, but actually...
...featured creatures this time are gigantic earthworms, 30 ft. long, capable of comic-alarming subterranean rapid transit (you just see this furrow moving across the desert at Road Runner speed). When they surface, they reveal trifurcated tongues, each extension ending in a funny-nasty suction cup. In other words, they are great special effects, informed by the mutant-monster tradition of '50s horror movies but satirizing that tradition in a delicate way -- neither condescending nor indulgent...
...gain firsthand evidence, naval agents managed to recruit a key officer of the Star Friendship Association. The man, who had had a falling-out with one of the companies in the group, agreed to wear a hidden microphone at its meetings. The club operated with almost comic formality. A day or two after new contracts were announced by the Navy, the group would meet in downtown Yokosuka. "They would determine who was interested in bidding on specific contracts," says a U.S. official. "Then they would break up into smaller groups to decide who would get the award...
...Other Stories by Saul Bellow (1984). Another American Nobel laureate presents his patented array of characters -- big thinkers and big shots -- with typical energy and verve. The author here makes limitations of length a positive virtue; the pressure of high-toned ideas passing through the minds of flawed, often comic figures gives the impression of short stories that are bursting at the seams...
...novels about the American Jewish writer Nathan Zuckerman seems even more impressive whole than it did in its serial installments. Zuckerman is not Roth, exactly, but neither is he entirely unlike his creator, trapped by work and celebrity. The interplay between these fictional and real beings is unfailingly rich, comic and engaging...