Word: plot
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Caesar from the beginning of Antony, there was a gap of some seven or eight years in the writing, and the two works came out highly dissimilar dramatically and stylistically. Ceasar is austere in vocabulary, drivingly direct in line; Antony is verbally opulent and weak in plot. Caesar attempts less, does it magnificently, and is an enormously effective stage-piece; Antony embraces more than it can handle, with only intermittent success. Though Shakespeare never surpassed the poetry he poured into the later play, Antony is, skipping all over the place in a record number of 42 scenes, far from ideally...
THOUGH HITCHCOCK'S abilities to manipulate plot coincidence and filmic shock properties are vaunted, the best moments of the film occur from ironies constructed by screen-writer Anthony Schaffer (missing from Arthur LaBern's original novel) and from Hitchcock's consequent need to define his characters for us. Though it's true that Frenzy isn't really "about" anything (except, as with most suspense films, man against the modern world), all the main characters illustrate the notion that violent streaks and clandestine desires are natural and sometimes even make sense. The Scotland Yard inspector who sneaks his meat and eggs...
...novel's plot remains more or less intact, but it is laden with Lehman's heavy touches of sympathy and maudlin sentimentality. These do little to focus Roth's savage vision: Jewishness as a perpetual circumcision of the psyche...
...crackpot politics and bills of lading, the irony and the ironmonger. Nobody but Ambler is quite so willing to risk boring us with the crucial facts-why the Russian rocket needs a special mounting flange to take a Chinese fuse, why it isn't all that simple to plot a new course for a merchant vessel sailing from Latakia to Alexandria, why the Agence Howell (shipping, light manufacturing, fast footwork) needs to get its capital out of Syria before the next revolution...
This is the author's longest, most ambitious book, but like her others it is meandering, reflective and unromantic -low on plot, long on thoughtfulness. There is, however, one new disconcerting element. The prose is notably fussier than usual. If there were a Comma Prize, Margaret Drabble would win in a walk. ∙Martha Duffy