It is the late 1930's, and World War II is impending, though it impends with unusual subtlety for a period drama.
Oscar Night impends, and come Sunday we can all refresh our skills in comparing the noncomparable: this time, in the Best Picture category, outdoor self-surgery versus admission policies at the Porcellian Club; involuntary toe-webbing versus gay parentage; backwoods methamphetamine cookery versus warmer feelings about the Windsor monarchy; and so on.
The final countdown begins Monday, and the N.H.L. work stoppage that everyone has expected since mid-July impends, less than six days away.
Peril impends when a note comes announcing that her visit must be put off.
By Roger Angell February 24 , 2011Oscar Night impends, and come Sunday we can all refresh our skills in comparing the noncomparable: this time, in the Best Picture category, outdoor self-surgery versus admission policies at the Porcellian Club; involuntary toe-webbing versus gay parentage; backwoods methamphetamine cookery versus warmer feelings about the Windsor monarchy; and so on.
This contradiction haunts contemporary Russian society, beckoning and repelling at once: as Thubron remarks, Siberia "impends through the darkness as the ultimate, unearthly Abroad".
In horror, very bad things have to happen to people — or, at the least, to impend ominously — and the perpetrators of those atrocities tend to be in extraordinarily foul moods, especially when, as in the case of ghosts and zombies, they have recently risen from the dead.
Anderson's stylistic accomplishments should be acknowledged, particularly the way he sustains an almost Homeric voice, as when Octavian resumes his chronicles: "Here commences my record — taken down in the hope that a record of such a struggle as here impends shall not be found uninteresting to the eye of future curiosity and the heart which thrills with compassion and is stirred by high deeds".
It is sensitive to earth tremors not felt by humans and calls in concert when a quake impends.
