Word: chilled
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...McInerney knows this turf and its voices ("I'm like, it's two in the afternoon, for Christ's sake. Most normal people have already been to sleep at least once already"). But, as in Bright Lights, McInerney is best at being mean; the novel is too shrill, too chill for compassion. Social satire may not demand a big heart, but moralizing does, and when McInerney tries to put a bleak cautionary spin onto the proceedings, the book goes out of control, just like Alison's life, and comes crashing down, leaving no trace...
Throughout, Tyler's touch is gentle but firm. She is consciously less dramatic than she has been in her recent novels. Yet Breathing Lessons fits naturally into the landscape of her work. Some readers may be reminded of The Big Chill or even of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Not quite. Rather, < Tyler pays tribute to ordinariness the hard way: without benefit of her usual whimsy and antic inventiveness. Every page says, about as well as it can be said, that what you are reading about may not be wonderful, but it is life...
Instead of a revelation, a change in character, or the resolution of a difficulty, Libra has at its center the chill that rises in the back of your mind when you see that the rays of paranoia are approaching, and you know that they are going to converge. It is a different sort of excitement, and it is not meant to give the reader a nice warm feeling...
Skywalks, those enclosed bridges linking downtown buildings, provide warmth in cold weather; they also cast a chill on urban life...
...must pay for the survival of his injured daughter, is a direct descendant of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. In Trapdoor, when an attic swallows a homeowner, the author is bowing in the direction of John Collier and Roald Dahl, two modern masters of the big chill. Bradbury is quick to acknowledge the sources of inspiration. "The ideas are my own," he says, "but books, movies, memories, provide the launching pads on the voyage to stories. So far, I've located about 500. And there must be at least 1,000 more out there, twinkling like stars...