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The Great Pursuit
''The Great Pursuit'' is a 1977 comic novel by Tom Sharpe. It is a satire encompassing commercialism in publishing and literary criticism. Plot introduction The story is a farce about greed in the publishing world, and the struggle between literature as a high art and the commercial imperative to reduce it to its lowest common denominator. The action takes place in London, New York City, the Deep South and the Maine coast. Plot summary Frensic and Futtle is a small and successful literary agency. But following a successful court case by a woman who claimed to have been libelled by one of their authors, the agency rapidly loses business. One day, a manuscript for a book called ''Pause O Men for the Virgin'' arrives at the agency, together with a note from the author's solicitor, saying that the author wishes to remain anonymous and that the agency has ''carte blanche'' on how it deals with the book. The book turns out to deal with the love affair between an 80-year-old woman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Sharpe
Thomas Ridley Sharpe (30 March 1928 – 6 June 2013) was an English satirical novelist, best known for his '' Wilt'' series, as well as ''Porterhouse Blue'' and ''Blott on the Landscape,'' all three of which were adapted for television. Life Sharpe was born in Holloway, London, and brought up in Croydon. Sharpe's father, the Reverend George Coverdale Sharpe, was a Unitarian minister who was active in far-right politics in the 1930s. He was chairman of the Acton and Ealing branch of The Link, and a member of the Nordic League. He declared that he hated Jews "in the sense that he hated all corruption". Sharpe initially shared some of his father's views, but was horrified on seeing films of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. University of Cambridge Sharpe was educated at Bloxham School, on which he based Groxbourne in ''Vintage Stuff'', followed by Lancing College. He then did national service in the Royal Marines before being admitted to Pembroke College, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satirical Novels
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or exposing the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many artistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1977 British Novels
Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). * January 17 ** 49 marines from the and are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain. * January 18 ** Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. ** Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead. ** SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister Džemal Bijedić, his wife and 6 others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina. * January 19 – An Ejército del Aire CASA C-207C Azor (registration T.7-15) plane crashes into the side of a mountain near Chiva, on approach to Valencia Airport in Spain, killing all 11 people on board. * January 20 – Jimmy Carter is sworn in as the 39th President of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Godley
Adam Godley (born 22 July 1964) is a British-American actor. He has been nominated for two Tony Awards and four Laurence Olivier Awards for his performances on the New York and London stages which include, ''Private Lives'' in 2001, ''The Pillowman'' in 2002, ''Rain Man'' in 2008, and ''The Lehman Trilogy'' in 2019. He made his Broadway debut in 2002 in a revival of Noël Coward's ''Private Lives'' for which he earned a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway debut. In 2011 he returned to Broadway in the musical ''Anything Goes'' for which he earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical nomination. In 2021, ''The Lehman Trilogy'' made its Broadway transfer to great critical acclaim, and securing Godley another Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Play. His film roles include ''Love Actually'' (2003), and the children's films ''Around the World in 80 Days'' (2004), ''Nanny McPhee'' (2005), and ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' (2005). He also has recurring ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Heap
Mark Heap (born 13 May 1957) is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his roles in television comedies, including, ''Brass Eye'', ''Big Train'', ''Spaced'', ''Jam (TV series), Jam'', ''Green Wing'', ''Friday Night Dinner'', ''Upstart Crow'' and ''Benidorm (British TV series), Benidorm''. Early life Heap was born in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India, to an English father and American mother, the youngest of four boys. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring Stilts, stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry. His brother, Carl Heap who is also an actor, was the artistic director of the company. After its demise, he became part of the street theatre duo ''The Two Marks'' (with Mark Saban) who appeared on television shows ''Ghost Train (TV series), Ghost Train'', ''Saturday Live (British TV programme), Saturday Live'' and ''3-2-1''. Television Heap has appeared in a va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandra Dickinson
Sandra Dickinson (née Searles) is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played characters who fell into the trope of a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice. Early life Dickinson was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Maryland with her younger brother. Her father, Harold F. Searles, was a psychoanalyst. Her mother, Sulvii "Sylvia" Manninen, of Finnish descent, was a nurse. Career In 1973, at the age of 24, she made her acting debut as a waitress in the 1973 British film ''The Final Programme''. She is perhaps most well-known for her role of Trillian in the TV series of Douglas Adams's ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. She has appeared in films including ''Superman III'', ''Supergirl'', '' StagKnight'', ''Ready Player One'' and ''The Batman''. She has provided the American voice of Jemima Puddle-Duck in the British animated children's television series ''The World of Peter Rabbit and Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toby Swift
Toby Swift is a radio drama director and producer for BBC Radio. His numerous credits, from 1999 to 2011, include the crime dramas '' The Recall Man'' and ''Trueman and Riley {{Infobox Radio Show , show_name = Trueman and Riley , image = , imagesize = , caption = , other_names = , format = Drama , runtime = 45 minutes (Radio 4 plays)30 m ...''. He also directs contemporary and periodic radio dramas. He won the '' Prix Italia for Adapted Drama'' in 2004 for ''M'', and again in 2005 for ''My Arm'' and for a third time in 2007 for ''Metropolis''.Prix Italia, Winners 1949 - 2010, RAI ''The Loop'' won a ''Bronze [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Tradition
''The Great Tradition'' is a book of literary criticism written by F R Leavis, published in 1948 by Chatto & Windus. Highlights of the book In his work, Leavis names Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad as the great English novelists. In all these eight, including Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, we have successors of Shakespeare. Within his argument he adds D.H. Lawrence to the pantheon of great novelists in English, though Leavis discusses Lawrence more in later works. Leavis disparaged Dickens except for his novel ''Hard Times (novel), Hard Times'', as lacking the "mature standards and interests" found in the works of Henry James. There was a similar contrast on the aspect of using melodrama in the novels, as compared to Joseph Conrad. In one statement on page 19, Leavis places Dickens among classic writers, but not in the great tradition: "That Dickens was a great genius and is permanently among the classics is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secker And Warburg
Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of Secker & Warburg and the Harvill Press. History Secker & Warburg Secker & Warburg was formed in 1935 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, by Fredric Warburg and Roger Senhouse. The firm became renowned for its political stance, being both anti-fascist and anti-communist, a position that put them at loggerheads with the ethos of many intellectuals of the time. When George Orwell parted company with Communist Party sympathizer Victor Gollancz over his editing of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), he took his next book ''Homage to Catalonia'' to Secker & Warburg, who published it in 1938. They also published, after 18 months of rejections and setbacks, ''Animal Farm'' (1945), and Orwell's subsequent books.Orwell, Sonia, and Ian Angus (eds), ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose (1945–1950)''. Penguin, 1970. Orwell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dumbing Down
Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, literature, and cinema, news, video games, and culture. Originated in 1933, the term "dumbing down" was movie-business slang, used by screenplay writers, meaning: " orevise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence". Dumbing-down varies according to subject matter, and usually involves the diminishment of critical thought by undermining standard language and learning standards, thus trivializing academic standards, culture, and meaningful information, as in the case of popular culture. In '' Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste'' (1979), the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) proposed that, in a society in which the cultural practices of the ruling class are rendered and established as the legitimate culture, said distinction then devalues the cultural capital of the subordinate middle- and working- classes, and thus limits their social mobili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest, respectively. The largest state by total area in New England, Maine is the 12th-smallest by area, the 9th-least populous, the 13th-least densely populated, and the most rural of the 50 U.S. states. It is also the northeasternmost among the contiguous United States, the northernmost state east of the Great Lakes, the only state whose name consists of a single syllable, and the only state to border exactly one other U.S. state. Approximately half the area of Maine lies on each side of the 45th parallel north in latitude. The most populous city in Maine is Portland, while its capital is Augusta. Maine has traditionally been known for its jagged, rocky Atlantic Ocean and bayshore coastlines; smoothly contoured mountains; heavily f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
