I found this a satisfying device, teetering on archness, but successful in maintaining a playful tone. |
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There's a sense of delicacy and detail in his approach that saves it from descending into rarefied archness. |
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Moreover, his fascination with B-movies, science fiction and the rest of pop culture was self-conscious but not qualified by archness or irony. |
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The archness doesn't really get in the way of the crime fighting, but it does lift this book from potentially boring to perfectly diversionary summer reading. |
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It can also be nihilistic: archness as a perpetual defence against the vulnerability of being sincere. |
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Mr. Cohen is arch, and archness can chafe. |
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On such openheartedness was their marriage founded that concealment or archness was unthinkable. |
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