Word: greeke
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There's this friend of mine, let's call him Harpo, who's on a streak of bad luck Jimmy the Greek wouldn't believe. Not much is going right for him. He is in debt. He doesn't know what he's doing. He enters contests, he never wins. Cars break down on him during first dates and across from 125th Street. And he tells me he just took a beating in the weekly poker game last night. Everyone folded on his best hands...
...EFFECTIVENESS of this Greek chorus of thoughts is indicative of the whole of Didion's novel. Written with an exceptional ease and remarkable eye for detail A Book of Common Prayer is, like almost everything Didion writes, greater than its many parts. Didion is a journalist as well as novelist; through simple descriptions she conveys an image and a mood surrounding each character and Boca Grande that is sarcastically humorous--often bitingly so, in a gratifying way--without making the entire novel seem frivolous or lightweight. Although there are problems with A Book of Common Prayer--perhaps...
Anne Meara manages to chew gum and act at the same time as a Gerald Ford figure; her role is amusing, but it fits poorly into the narrative. Playing Kissinger with a Greek accent, Melina Mercouri advises Jackson from abroad, using a portable phone to check on the abbess' progress. It is funny once or twice, but not as a running gag. Still, there are few problems with the acting save the occasional air of embarrassment from the nuns who deliver the poorest lines...
...leftist, and come from a leftist perspective, but it's not merely that. It's a stroy that catches you up because it's warm and richly human--the people of Harlan aren't so different from people anywhere, and their story is as sadly cathartic as Greek tragedy...
...after all, be a superb athlete to play left field for the Boston Red Sox, guard for the New York Knicks or quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. But anyone with enough determination can run the marathon - and even the stragglers do a good deal better than Pheidippides, the gallant Greek who started the madness back in 490 B.C., when he ran 25 miles to tell his fellow Athenians about their troops' great victory at Marathon. Though many have feared the worst, no one has ever expired in the Boston Marathon. Pheidippides, goes the legend, was so pooped...