Word: plotting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Doctorow's book itself is based on an invisible but firm set of rules. Characters appear and reappear, but they do so logically if not chronologically. The plot jumps from place to place, but this movement only emphasizes the role of chance...
Extraordinary in its simplicity, the book's plot recounts the author's lunch hour, as he muses on the escalator back to work. Although a routine lunch hour, Baker has a lot to think about on his way to the mezzanine where his office is located. How he breaks two shoelaces in two days, goes to lunch, buys new shoelaces and stops to read the Penguin Classic edition of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations...
...David betrays that style, adding a shallow plot, unadmirable characters and a detached atmosphere. The Strike Zone is an insult to the fans' intelligence and devotion...
Even readers who can bear the plot will not be to handle the new characters...
...Duty is the more conventional of the two, an L.A. Law-style mix of characters, subplots and issues that are introduced and neatly resolved by episode's end. The show's flaws are familiar: characters who are too simplistic (the hotdogging helicopter pilot, the streetwise black private), and plot twists that are too patly "illuminating." When a battle- fatigued soldier is sent back into combat before he is ready -- over the objections of his sergeant and a psychiatrist -- you can bet that five minutes into his first mission he will go berserk and get shot. Still, the show has broached...