Christopher Pelling's laconic delivery sucked the air out of the epic tales and not even Tim Pigott-Smith's magisterial readings could refocus attention.
Camilla Redmond, The Guardian, 11 December 2007. Guardian
At the table, after pulling crackers with the quiet, laconic (but, it was revealed slowly, also very dry and extremely bright) American sitting opposite, I kick-started the sort of small-talk you find you're likely to make with a good-looking stranger over the turkey and roasties at Christmas, albeit only in Hollywood.
Kathryn Flett, The Observer, 14 October 2007. The Observer
Iowans saw a candidate who is subdued and sonorous, a laconic presence who spoke in soft monotone, threw few elbows and displayed little drive to distinguish himself from his opponents.
Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, 4 October 2007. New York Times
Curiously, of the novel’s strictly alternating strands, the relatively laconic and sexually neutered commentary of the neohumans Daniel 24 and 25 is the more interesting—more pregnant with suspense, more amusing to imagine in its technology and austerity, its attenuated eschatology.
John Updike, The New Yorker, 22 May 2006, The New Yorker
reviewing Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island. Amazon
"The sympathies of a well-adjusted person can easily be aroused by the plight of strangers. Indeed, the skillful writer of a novel, a play, or an opera can engage our emotions on behalf of people who are not only strangers to us, but who do not even exist! And a person whose emotions cannot be so aroused is not behaving normally" - John Derbyshire
