Word: reader
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Seductive words. And yet they do not hang together, at least not completely. The smart newsman, as well as the intelligent reader, realizes that complete objectivity is indeed a fantasy, never to be attained. Anything a reporter writes is, in the true sens of the word, a "story," one person's account of a particular event, hardly to be trusted as Divine revelation. But at the same time, the reporter should recognize that objectivity, like perfection, is a fantasy worth pursuing, a goal that is not only noble, but practical. The more nearly objective, or more nearly perfect...
...enjoys casting a sly peasant eye on pretension and selfdelusion. When moralist Puzo judges his characters' behavior it is not because that behavior offends convention but because it endangers survival. Merlyn's warning to a promiscuous actress about the dangers of V.D. echoes an Army training film, though the reader may not be sure whether the author is trying to be funny or just didactic. The novel's biggest flaw is a switching back and forth from third-to first-person narrative, thus violating Puzo's own first rule of writing...
...deserved, and also the trashy, unromantic criminal life it might have expected. Even if one could not entirely accept his relentlessly bleak view of contemporary life, there was a certain symbolic weight to Stone's characters, a naturalistic force and detail in his writing that carried the reader along, however glumly. The movie strips most of that texture away in order to concentrate on the action. The result is a succession of classic genre confrontations carried out by dispirited people, movement without brio or suspense. With all the violent interruptions, it is hard to take the characters seriously...
...called Montaillou, clinging to a mountainside in the Pyrenees in what is now southern France. The time is the beginning of the 14th century. The priest is Pierre Clergue, a clergyman who might have made Boccaccio blush. In French Historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's brillant reconstruction, the reader learns how the villagers thought, ate, hated and loved-and even what they said to one another in public and in private. Such rare detail has made this lively volume a surprise bestseller in Europe...
...reader senses an insufficiency, however. Staring unflinchingly at bad nerves and loneliness is admirable, but fearing to look at any other sort of human condition is not, and the cautiousness of Yates' writing comes very close to fear. - John Skow