Valiant Ambition, by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking).
Yet if anything, their sense of true communication as a valiant and impossible dream has only intensified in the decades since they made their names, Mr. Albee with "Zoo Story" (in 1960) and Mr. Stoppard with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern".
Regarding the stunning title story in this volume, which itself makes this book worth reading, it's a deeply affecting tale about the collision of two lives: a fat, pale boy with "unfortunate Prince Valiant bangs" who dreams of being a hero; and a middle-aged cancer patient who is thinking about killing himself because he fears becoming an invalid and burden to his family and friends.
A pioneer in the early days of live television, Ira Cirker directed shows such as Robert Montgomery Presents, Search for Tomorrow, Nash Airflyte Theatre, and Valiant Lady, and recounted the days when dream sequences were signaled by filming colored water stirred in a pail.
"Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" is the tale of a small-town boy from Iowa, with a Prince Valiant haircut, a bad overbite and big dreams, who comes, like so many other small-town dreamers, to the San Fernando Valley to become a pornographic film star.
He spent most of his life in a maniacal dream world depicting battles fought by a valiant team of little girls against a band of malevolent marauders who enslaved and tortured children.
With just three first downs after half-time, their dream run may be over but this season has been a valiant effort from a team no one expected to be competing in the most surprising division of the year.
Havrilesky argues, however, that this dream feeds a delusion; "that isolation is the most honorable choice, that dropping out... is somehow more valiant than working slowly to reform, to collaborate, to hope for better".
Now Medea lives for the moral superiority that comes from having sacrificed everything for her love, never understanding that the reason she committed such valiant and heinous acts was in order to turn Jason into the kind of strong man she had always dreamed of possessing, and whose importance would be reflected onto her.
PERSECUTED, valiant and victorious.
