dark material
with a bright impasto of
playful irony
Reviewers, whether for food, restaurants, books or movies, seem to get the best words and word play into their writing.
In his review of How Tyrants Fall by Marcel Dirsus, Pratinav Anil writes:
Since the second world war, 23% of the world’s rulers have ended up exiled, imprisoned or killed after leaving office. For dictators, though, the figure rises to 69%.
This was impressed on Robert Mugabe not through statistics but by seeing what happened to his friend Taylor.
Subsequently, he let it be known there was only one way he was going to leave Zimbabwe – “in a coffin”.
How Tyrants Fall arguably belongs to the genre known as “mirrors for princes” – manuals for monarchs – whose exponents include Al-Ghazali and Machiavelli.
Dirsus is a worthy heir to that tradition.
He wears his research lightly and ranges widely, lathering his dark material with a bright impasto of playful irony.
If, back in the day, one Professor had written your wear your research lightly and ranges widely, lathering your dark material with a bright impasto of playful irony on anything I wrote (well, I guess one Professor DID say that but that’s another story and it was another story, a love story I wrote for a creative writing class for my Jimmy Carter era Senior Writing Requirement not a research paper) I would have rolled up and died a happy person.
I recall the story told by Stephen Ambrose (and yes I am aware of the danger of even bringing Mr. Ambrose into a story today) as a student at the Univ of Wisconsin.
Mr. Ambrose tells how he went to see one of his Professors and low and behold, one of Mr. Ambrose’s papers was tacked to the Professors day.
Mr. Ambrose writes that he was about to bust and walked into the Professor’s office all aglow.
Instead of papers, the Professor asked Mr. Ambrose if he knew about rattlesnakes and the western culture.
“Out west,” the Professor said, “Folks will kill a rattlesnake, skin it and nail the skin to door to keep out other snakes.”
Then the Professor stared at Mr. Ambrose for a good long time until Mr. Ambrose pieced it all together and figured out WHY his paper was tacked to the door.
I would say that that Professor wore his messages about research lightly and ranges widely, lathering dark material with a bright impasto of playful irony.
No Haiku For You 