Word: reader
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...sprawling narrative are medieval romances, scenes from fierce fairy tales, and fiercer wars that ring with heraldic fury and brighten with the loyalty of warrior to king celebrated in Anglo-Saxon poetry. But there is no single, unifying quest and, above all, no band of brothers for the reader to identify with as they struggle across a perilous land scape. No Hobbits either, with their lame jokes and sheer joy in comradeship and camping out in the countryside that helped keep things rolling, volume after volume, through the dry and brambly patches of the Rings cycle...
Aliens didn't swoop down on Clarke's Sri Lanka home, so instead of Overmind the reader gets The View from Serendip, a hodgepodge of autobiographical trivia, tepid sea stories and futuristic speculation. The essays on space and technology go several light-years towards redeeming Serendip, but they don't go far enough...
While many may envy Clarke's success at relocating himself off the subcontinent in an island paradise, few will care about his domestic difficulties, described in "Servant Problem--Oriental Style." Nor is the reader likely to admire Clarke's wit in suggesting that Appuhamy, his houseboy for eight years and the father of 13 children, should receive a complimentary vasectomy as remuneration for services rendered. Equally boring are Clarke's tax problems, his alimony difficulties, his spinal injury, and the roster of literary celebrities and other personalities whom Clarke has met in the lobby of New York's Chelsea Hotel...
Partridge, whom Edmund Wilson dubbed "the Word King," is already at work on a second, enlarged dictionary of catch phrases. His first effort has been praised by C.P. Snow for its "scholarly scrupulousness" and by George Steiner, who calls it a "sparkling, compendious work." Even so, each reader seems to find that a favorite phrase is missing or that an explanatory note is inadequate. Once that is remedied, the lexicographer says, he is through with major works. Eric Partridge fans have learned not to take him at his word. As he has written, there's life...
...indication of the American obsession with sports is the large number of books published each year about sports figures, teams, or leagues. Most of these books are incredibly silly. At best they inform the reader of some little facts about an athlete previously known--like where he went to high school, what kind of sandwiches he likes, why he is great, and so on. In the history of sports books, only a few stand out, among them Jim Bouton's Ball Four, Roger Kahn's Boys of Summer and anything written by Roger Angell. A new book that decidedly does...