And I say this as a fellow-hater who agrees entirely with Franzen about the odiousness of those Apple commercials featuring Justin Long ("a personified Mac … of such insufferable smugness that he made the miseries of Windows attractive by comparison").
As he sat in the courtroom, his chin propped awkwardly on his fist, his predicament could be seen either as a state's admirably muscular response to the abusive treatment of a vulnerable young man or as an attempt to criminalize teen-age odiousness by using statutes aimed at people more easily recognizable as hate-mongers and perverts.
In the hopes of proving that Trump has no monopoly on odiousness, aides have released a point-by-point comparison showing that on such key issues as worker's rights and health care, Walker is just as terrifying as the former reality-show host.
The dancer Timothy Edwards, looking buxom and clueless in a garish blond wig, lip-synced so well that the odiousness of Ms. Wallace's words was heightened, along with her ridiculousness.
"You need to possess more than a little nastiness to play basketball at the highest level," he declares, and he's not shy about detailing his hickory-smoked odiousness.
Because for all his odiousness, this little Tory toad is quite simply one of the most compelling characters in TV history.
I never know, when I turn to this book, whether to be more shocked by the odiousness of Walter Fish or by the cunning artlessness of Margery's appeal for our sympathy over what she has been through.
From afar, Terry seems like a peculiarly English streak of odiousness; the sort who, despite being guilty of some palpably indefensible behaviour, is able to ignore all logic and manufacture their own grievance so that they can behave like they have been wronged.
In an era when slanders about the supposed odiousness of human nature are routine, the kindness and love in that observation don't just make it beautiful; they make it important.
Maraniss supplies plenty of fresh examples of his odiousness, like his decision to let apartheid South Africa field a team at the very time much of Africa was shaking off colonialism and fielding its own first crop of Olympians.
We have collectively been indignant about the outrages of that era for a long time, so when the Klansman (Steve Aronson) spews out his invective, it doesn't jolt us so much as confirm the odiousness we have long recognized.
