The novels of Henry James are psychological in that the crucial events occur in the souls of the protagonists, and it was perhaps James more than any serious novelist before or since who convinced frivolous novel-readers that the "psychological approach" guarantees a lack of action and excitement.
Several readers said the discussion was frivolous for these somber times -- before going on to give a plug for the breed of their own dogs.
Evelyne Lever gives us the facts of the queen's existence, but rarely the background, leaving the reader to wonder why this extravagant, frivolous woman ever excited the least sympathy.
It's going to be a surprise to readers that it's something so frivolous.
We wanted the pages to sparkle and to elicit a response from readers, but we were afraid to be frivolous.
Perhaps young readers are exposed to too many messages of frivolous issues like the latest love interest at school or what girl wore what outfit last week.
"Though occasional critics find New York excessively slick and too often frivolous, the magazine undeniably generates excitement — an excitement that is winning readers not just in Manhattan but in urban centers across the country," Newsweek said in 1970.
Its gently skewering style is best enjoyed in a state of emotional and physical repose; too much ontological angst in the reader, in other words, and the fun will seem not only frivolous but beside the point.
The iconoclasm of the final Ming decades was mirrored in a literary movement of total individual freedom, championed notably by Yuan Zhongdao, but writings produced during this period were later denigrated as insincere, coarse, frivolous, and so strange and eccentric as to make impossible demands on the readers.
Typical questions include "Do you think the city should fine people whose dogs bark or who blare their horns?" or "Would you like to live to be 100?" There is a $10 prize for News readers who submit askable questions, which must be neither too cosmic nor too frivolous.
