But as I persevered to keep the characters' era and relations (and author's sources) straight, the strange lullaby of miscegenation that legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed was humming began to gather momentum and carry me back to an old pre-minstrel Virginny, many aspects of which I was unfamiliar.
As he's done in earlier books, Mr. Woodward has freely "attributed thoughts, conclusions and feelings to the participants" -- in some cases, without directly interviewing the person in question -- and while the book is told in a coolly omniscient voice, individual scenes often reflect the point of view or spin of the author's sources.
8 Fictitious, like most of the author's "sources". 9 There was no such office in his time; see note to Aur. xlii.2. 10 None are known to us.
The last straw came when the group picked "The Da Vinci Code" and someone suggested the discussion would be enriched by delving into the author's source material.
Among the many artists and writers, living and dead, who make an appearance in the novel, the most significant is Theodor Fontane, the great realist and ironist, a journalist and historian who late in life became one of his country's leading fiction writers and who is the hero's literary double and the author's source of innumerable allusions.
The author's source material is familiar to scholars; however, for this reviewer, at times it was interpreted too broadly.
Cynically, one might even say that the paper is yet another example of the "sky is falling in" response to any suggestion that the author's source of support may be undergoing changes.
If the source's author is known to be emotionally or financially connected with the subject, be aware that the source may not fairly represent all views.
The phrase suggests technical insight, but when you trace back the author's quoted sources, you find that, in this context, the ideational metafunction only means content.
Chris Mullin in the Times, meanwhile, worried that "Osborne, who is, I suspect, one of the author's principal sources, gets off much too lightly".
The former Saudi Arabian ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Mr. Card, Mr. Tenet, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser (to Bush senior), appear to be among the author's primary sources.
