Perhaps American readers don't like its lack of "optimism" (there is no shortage of pessimism in American literature, but the national character is one of striving, of altering circumstances, rather than accepting them).
In the end, I suspect it depends on whether you believe our fates are sealed at birth or if you think that it is a key part of human nature to be able to display a plasticity in behaviour and in ways of thinking in the face of altered circumstance.
His fictional alter ego, Roy, is present throughout the book, but in radically altered circumstances.
Mr. Wein is returning as a festival producer in altered circumstances.
They had virtually no time, they said, to adjust their lives to their altered circumstances.
We need a new way of living, a way that reflects the radically altered circumstances of the post-Sudden Departure world.
The president's refusal to drop his tax-cutting agenda when the nation was gearing up for war is perhaps the most shocking example of his inability to change his priorities in the face of drastically altered circumstances.
The altered circumstances surrounding the series are a bit surprising because the show, an Americanized adaptation of the hit British comedy about an immigrant family's cable talk show, "The Kumars at No. 42," was once the object of a bidding war between NBC, which is owned by the General Electric Company, and Fox.
Whatever the injustice of the situation in which Sir Alex Ferguson's team found themselves they should have remembered that the first thing to do when a player has been lost is do nothing in particular for a time, just try to keep possession and reorganise to meet the altered circumstances.
(Hey, in slightly altered circumstances, I could well be one of the recipients).
