Word: meaninglessness
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...could not bring his mind into focus. The novel became two novels, and the two became four He could not fix upon a single setting...even his theme eluded him...He made four beginnings, constantly changing his perspective, until he could scarcely bear to touch his blurred and meaningless manuscripts. A few of the scenes took form with all his old perfection...but life shook before his eves, like the picture on the surface of a pond when a stone has disturbed its tranquil mirror." Readers who can appreciate such portaits will recognize that Van Wyck Brooks has succeeded...
...forenoon of Jan. 30, 1936, and another man was similarly driving a Ford westward along the same section, from 17th to 18th, at 30 m.p.h. at 4 p. m. of the afternoon of Aug. 10, 1913. How swiftly are the two cars approaching? The question is obviously meaningless. The two cars are not approaching, nor in any way spatially related, for they are not in the same time-setting. . . . [Similarly] the stars and nebulae are all traveling at dizzy speeds along unknown and unpredictable paths . . . each in a different direction, whereof we can merely deduce the radial component at some...
...glass cities, and unidentifyable masses of machinery (produced by miniature effects and unusual angles) all contribute to a world of technical wonders. Yet these are childishly grotesque, limited by the incapability of the imagination and hampered by the confinements of the present. It is more than exceptional photographic artistry: meaningless...
Author Smith writes with lucid detachment of the formal yet vividly human behavior of his Japanese, the confusion in the minds of the young generation about their duties, their chances in life. The extremes of poverty and industrialism in Tokyo, the meaningless political suicides, the continual troop movements toward Manchuria, are keenly described. Despite several soft episodes and what will seem to many readers an over-facile ending, the novel has the steady strength of an almost reportorial reality...
...voice. On the stage she exhibited more grace and confidence than she did at her debut in 1928. Otherwise her progress was unnoticeable. Her voice, at best, is naturally ingratiating. But it is still technically insecure, often feeble and rasping when she strives for top notes, empty and meaningless when she tries to sing...