Talking to Strangers Patterson, J. R
World literature today,
07/2023, Letnik:
97, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
By thinking long-term, historical past-modern love being an extension of medieval ideas of courtly love, for instance-he surmised that conversation, and nurturing the art of conversation, is the best ...way to transform our lives in a meaningful way. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, the stranger can bare their soul and leave whenever they like, feeling the thrill and lightness brought on by their openness. Over the evening, she described her parents, their religiosity, their diet of Fox News, the 35mm snapshots she kept of them-her most treasured item; her recently jettisoned engagement; her desire for control that bordered on obsessive; her growing interest in socialism after learning about Austria's national health service (not something she relished talking about at home during Fox commercial breaks). Zeldin wrote several books on the art of conversation, speaking to people for whom it is a central need in life.
This volume narrows a huge gap in regard to Steinbeck translations in Eastern Europe, here considered in terms of the political division between Western Europe and the Soviet-dominated East. As the ...only book of its kind, and although intended for both literature scholars and the broader arts community, it makes an important contribution to Steinbeck and American literature studies, and is useful for scholars of the languages discussed here. Although Steinbeck is regarded as an American writer of high repute, his appeal and influence extend far beyond the borders of North America. As documented here, he was particularly popular in Eastern Europe, where he inadvertently served political purposes. Evaluated through an ideological lens, the sole value of his works was seen to reside in their utility to oppressive political regimes. Even works that clearly showed Steinbeck venturing into new topics and forms could not escape an ideological burden, whereas several others that lacked social necessity and documentary integrity were unjustifiably marginalised or consigned to oblivion. As this study also shows, only recently, following the fall of totalitarian rule, have Steinbeck's works started to be approached from the various angles of contemporary criticism. The acknowledgement that there is much more to recommend in his books than that which was praised by those who, blinded by their commitment or because of imposed limitations on expectations, showed no appreciation for the variety and subtlety of Steinbeck's writing, explains the recent renaissance of interest in the whole of Steinbeck's oeuvre. Indeed, viewed without preconceived ideas and accepted for what they are, it is impossible not to respond to Steinbeck's exploration of issues of freedom, individual choice, and relationships, and not to notice that he was much more than merely a
proletarian writer.
In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different. -;-John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent, 1961 In previous years, the summer issue of the Ochsner ...Journal has typically been a nonthemed edition presenting a collection of manuscripts representing various wide-ranging topics in medicine. The 3 original research papers present studies of pediatric bronchoscopy for foreign body aspiration, radiographic/audiologic findings in the temporal bones of patients having CHARGE syndrome, and pediatricians' confidence and behaviors in smoking cessation promotion and knowledge of the Smoking Cessation Trust in Louisiana. ...our work is for nothing if not for the many authors who now trust us to provide effective and efficient constructive reviews of their work.
This article discusses Steinbeck’s linguistic creation of Chinese personae in his fiction, which develops from the early practice of using silence in ‘Johnny Bear’ (1938) to chronologically ...progressive engagement with Chinese Pidgin English (CPE) in Cannery Row (1945) and East of Eden (1952). This change is evident from the increase of CPE dialogues in his later works and best exemplified in the turn to taking non-standard English as a key concern by investing style-shifting with stylistic and thematic meaning in East of Eden. Silence and implicatures are strategically employed in ‘Johnny Bear’ to keep the narrative suspense and broach the antinarratable subject of interracial romance and illegitimate pregnancy so as not to offend the reader. Steinbeck’s later experimentation with CPE demonstrates conformity and discrepancy with sociolinguistic observations, whilst in his representation of CPE the author uses metalanguage to guide readers towards a better understanding of this language variety and a sympathetic interpretation of the Chinese characters. Existing alongside real sociolinguistic systems, the ficto-linguistic system in Steinbeck’s fiction subtly critiques the supposedly ‘correct’ language expected of ethnic groups and skilfully denounces discriminatory racial distinctions. The author’s incorporation of Chinese presence and CPE into his writings serves the grander scheme of scrutinizing American identity and society.
Off-brand for a studio known for its glossy Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, the epigraph, set against a backdrop of a knight holding aloft a cat pierced by his sword, references respectively ...a fictitious quotation, book, and author (see figure 1). In the Introduction to a collection titled The Simple Art of Murder, Raymond Chandler outlined the overall code and structure of his detective fiction featuring private investigator Philip Marlowe (such as The Big Sleep, 1939; Farewell, My Lovely, 1940; and The Lady in the Lake, 1943): according to Chandler, detective fiction tells of "a world gone wrong, a world in which, long before the atom bomb, civilization had created the machinery for its own destruction" (vii). "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid," Chandler concludes, providing a "quality of redemption"-or, more properly, a detective functioning as an heroic redeemer-unavailable to the naturalistic sufferers of a modern "world gone wrong" ("The Simple Art of Murder" 193). Identified as a discrete genre by French critics after its heyday in the 1940s, film noir comprises not only a cinematic style but also themes, plots, and characters located in postwar disillusionment and a loss of confidence in the ability of institutions to restore order in the naturalistic "mean streets" of the urban jungle.2 Beginning with the movie version of Double Indemnity (1944), with its moody atmospherics of smoky, shadowed daytime interiors punctuated with strips of lights through Venetian blinds, films noir placed the viewer in the position of the point-of-view character forced to interpret situations in which nothing is as it seems.
