Word: reader
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...take us only so far. It can be argued that even the holiest of texts cannot do Moses justice. And so, as usual, we must turn to the imagination of the ancient rabbis. They offer a version blatantly ahistoric but able to capture the yearning of the human reader, perhaps pointing the way to a greater truth...
...reader remembered that "TIME once described a TV character from the '70s as 'a human oil slick.' Who was that character?" The Fonz? Vinnie Barbarino? Nope. The slickster was J.R. Ewing of Dallas, as depicted in a 1980 cover story. Another recalled a photograph in TIME of two Peruvian surgeons, Drs. Francisco Grana Reyes and Esteban Rocca. "The content of the story," said the reader, "was about a modern-day brain operation using ancient tools from the Mayans." Did we run that? Yes, indeed...
...great tragedy of The Conversion is that we, as readers, find it so difficult to feel sorry for the characters in spite of their monstrously tragic lives. Rather than the passionate emotion one would expect in a story of conversion and cultural abandonment, The Conversion leaves the reader unaffected, apathetic in spite of the moral importance of the issues at hand. In a way, Appelfeld is teaching by example. By convincing the reader that conversion is no more than an economic transaction, and humanity characterized by little more than greed and self-interest, he shows the ease with which...
...love you in spite of that." While ostensibly accepting and tolerant, this sentiment denigrates Tad in suggesting that his homosexuality is a burden, a blemish that must be overcome. In his dissection of such phrases considered, by and large, to be socially acceptable, O'Donnell forces the reader to examine the reality behind the facade...
When Tad wakes up on "Christmas Eve Eve Eve...more alive than dead," the arrival at renewed faith in life is genuine, not merely a convenient, uplifting message. The reader feels as though O'Donnell has provided proof that in being dysfunctional may lie the only hope for self-awareness and connection to life and love. If being dysfunctional means going through life as Tad does with "joyous difficulty," then there is hope for true understanding, acceptance of life's absurdities as well as promise...