Women have a natural, inherent knowingness, an unspoken connection between us, as mothers, wives and sisters.

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Where Mr Houellebecq stands out is the combination of knowingness and pent-up passion with which he writes.

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There is, too, a troubling knowingness, an uneasiness about how seriously the novel should press down on its seriously interrogative title.

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But just like the Austin Powers parodies, such knowingness recognises that Bond is essentially a product of the early days of mass consumerism.

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To earlier generations, escaping the claustrophobic all-knowingness of a village for the relative anonymity of the city was one of the more liberating aspects of modern life.

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Without ditching his arsenal of ironic inflections and his nonpareil ability to make knowingness hilarious as well as smarmy, Murray takes Phil all the way through a prolonged winter of discontent and into a pixillated serenity.

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