'Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes'
By WILLIAM KENNEDY
Reviewed by JOHN SAYLES
William Kennedy's new novel is a musical contemplation of time and its effects on passion set in three different eras.
"While, in the opinion of society, contemplation is the gravest thing of which any citizen can be guilty, in the opinion of the highest culture it is the proper occupation of man."
--from THE CRITIC AS ARTIST
--from THE CRITIC AS ARTIST
(Illustration: Soumyadeep Roy)
But then in both pieces the lights go up a moment later on a slow movement that shows some kind of poignancy. At once we know the world onstage has changed, deepened, grown darker and larger. Now we realize that we have far to go before we reach completion. In these two works and in so many others, Mr. Taylor’s is the art of drastic contrasts: of sun and shade, of heroes and insects, of rush and reflectiveness.
Borrowing a phrase from Robert Louis Stevenson (who read the diary after it was decoded and published in close to a full version in 1879), Tomalin subtitles her book ''The Unequalled Self,'' and suggests that over the course of the diary we can watch the evolution of something like a modern version of selfhood.
This is certainly true in the sense that Pepys held nothing back, but he's also the least reflective and self-conscious diarist imaginable. We get none of the soul-searching, the self-examination -- the sense of a personality under construction -- that turns up, say, in Boswell's journals, just a generation or two later. There's something almost childlike in Pepys's essential self-delight and in his undifferentiated avidity for experience.
unequaled
(ŭn-ē'kwəld) 
also un·e·qualled adj.
Not matched or paralleled by others of its kind; unrivaled.
verb [I] FORMAL
to think carefully, especially about possibilities and opinions:
The manager demanded time to reflect (on what to do).
[+ that] She reflected that this was probably the last time she would see him.
noun [C or U] FORMAL
serious and careful thought:
On reflection (= After considering it), I decided I had been wrong.
After thirty years as a judge, her reflections on/about justice were well worth listening to.
reflective Show phonetics
adjective FORMAL
thinking carefully and quietly:
After hearing the news they sat in a quiet, reflective silence.
also un·e·qualled adj.avid
contemplation
Line breaks: con|tem|pla¦tion
Pronunciation: /ˌkɒntɛmˈpleɪʃ(ə)n /
NOUN
1The action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time:the road is too busy for leisurely contemplation of the scenery
1.4A form of Christian prayer or meditation in which a person seeks to pass beyond mental images and concepts to a direct experience of the divine.
Origin
middle english: from Old French, from Latincontemplatio(n-), from the verb contemplari (seecontemplate).
1 じっと見つめること，熟視；熟考，沈思黙考，瞑想(めいそう)
in contemplation
沈思黙考して
沈思黙考して
2 意図，もくろみ，計画
3 予想，見込み.
meditate
Line breaks: medi|tate
Pronunciation: /ˈmɛdɪteɪt
/
/
Derivatives
1 …を企てる，もくろむ，計画する
2 〈物・事を〉熟考［瞑想(めいそう)］する.
［ラテン語meditātus （meditārī瞑想する＋-tus過去分詞語尾）］
meditation
Line breaks: medi|ta¦tion
Pronunciation: /mɛdɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n
/
/
NOUN
1.1[ COUNT NOUN] A written or spoken discourseexpressing considered thoughts on a subject:this is not a mythopoetic meditation onmanhood, it’s a historical study
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