Word: reader
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...knows how many such papers exist, since they appear sporadically, frequently flounder and die for lack of financial support or reader interest. Most of them are started by bright, active youngsters who are fed up with the blandness of official school papers. In Middletown, Conn., for example, High School Senior John Beatman began editing the Omelette-"It Doesn't Fry People, People Fry It"-because students have "no outlet to express any controversy." Beatman, who was once expelled for wearing a beard, collected a staff of a dozen teen-agers from three Middletown high schools with only one viewpoint...
Hanging On. And there lies the trouble. The reader is only told, usually as an aside, that Daughter Lily Ashley becomes an opera star, that Daughter Constance Ashley becomes a suffragette, that Son Roger Ashley becomes a great financial success. Wherever the narrative demands a crucial, emotional confrontation, the author turns remote, reverts to brief explorations of life's enduring verities; and the reader is deprived of vital particulars. It is as if, viewing events from Olympus, Wilder sees the marvel of life but not the movement. The people of Coaltown, U.S.A. -Everytown, Universe-love, falter, hate, do good...
...leaving that last word adangle, Wilder presses home his conviction that man's story is unending and that come what may, man will prevail. The thought is unarguable, but its demonstration leaves the reader with characters who are merely symbols and a story that is an abstraction. After visiting Coaltown, readers may want to hop a fast freight to Grover's Corners, the setting of Our Town, whose scale was smaller but whose philosophy seemed almost as tangible as its strawberry sodas. Thornton Wilder remains engaging, thoughtful, a man to meet. Yet in this book, one longs...
Beyond all this, the reader may well conclude that Disraeli's greatest gift was for acupuncture, which he practiced with matchless skill on all the pomposities of his era. He was a swinger for all seasons...
Life's Circularity. It requires a patient reader to keep from feeling that he has been marching through Borges in circles. But, like all compelling writers, Borges makes the march profoundly worthwhile; the traveler may find himself unconsciously adapting to the author's concentric step...