Al Gore's well-timed public statement, in which he said he would agree to a statewide recount of the votes in Florida, could drop any further legal action and would be ready to meet face to face with George W. Bush to end the partisan tone of each side's rhetoric, was a bit of political mastery that surpassed anything we had seen from Mr. Gore's campaign before the election (front page, Nov. 16).
Localization requires an intimate understanding of the target culture that surpasses mere mastery of the target language.
Lies are surpassing the truth.
Even so, the result demands a patient viewing, and maybe more than one; only after a second dose did I get the measure of Garrone's mastery, and realize how far he has surpassed, not merely honored, the author's courageous toil.
The poetical translations from Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit made by the German poet Friedrich Rückert can scarcely be surpassed, either in accuracy or in poetical mastery.
Today's dazzling conservatory hotshots are consistently infallible, but even they do not surpass the voltage of Horowitz (including scorched and smoking wrong notes) or the unearthly mastery of Cziffra, who not only played the most difficult pieces ever composed, but toyed with them.
There are other writers who approach Leonard's mastery of a certain deadpan American vernacular -- Joe Gores, the late Ross Thomas, Donald E. Westlake, Carl Hiaasen with his wilder, screwball variations -- but none who surpass him.
Thomas Tomkins displays a mastery of 12-part polyphony in his full anthem O praise the Lord, all ye heathen, but for quiet expressive intimacy of thought there is little to surpass When David heard that Absalom was slain.
Then Lassila surpassed that.
