Word: many
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...MANI, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Mani is a desolate Greek district, which modern civilization has not yet touched, whose poverty-stricken people are the descendants of the Spartans and still speak familiarly of Helen of Troy. British Author Fermor describes their way of life and their dramatic, forbidding countryside with a knowledgeability and high style that make Mani the year's best travel book...
...When God had finished making the world," say the natives of Mani, "he had a sack of stones left over and he emptied it here." Petroprolific Mani is the middle tine of a twisted three-pronged peninsular fork that jabs into the Mediterranean from Greece's Peloponnesus. About as remote from the 20th century as the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Maniots dwell in a kind of telescopic time capsule that includes Homer but little more than a hint of the Industrial Revolution. Few Maniots read or write. They have no radios, movies or telephones...
From the Tower. Other Greeks shudder when they mention the Mani, and few ever go there. In his mad-dog-and-English-man way, Britain's Patrick Leigh Fermor not only went but also brought back a fascinating traveler's account of this bypassed pocket of civilization. Author Fermor, a passionate philhellene, has roamed Greece for 20 years, including a stint as a British commando, and his book is steeped in myth and history, which sometimes slacken the pace but rarely dim the interest of his chronicle...
...Moles of Fate. The legendary patriot leaders of Greece's struggle for independence from Turkey-Theodoros Kolokotronis and Petrobey Mavromi-chalis-campaigned from the Mani. Indeed, Mavromichalis was a Maniot who, in countless forays against the Turks, lost 49 relatives. He nailed the heads of Turks whom he killed around his own tower until it was studded with skulls. In the light of their rebel heritage, the Maniots of today are remarkably royalist. In private homes, Fermor found pictures of Greece's King Paul and Queen Frederika right next to those of George VI and Elizabeth...
Couplets for Hector. Mani's most cherished art form is the miroloy, the dirge with which keening womenfolk usher the Maniot out of a harsh world that neither man nor God seemingly made. More a lament for a hero being taken to the underworld than for a Christian going to his reward-even as she makes the sign of the cross, the grieving widow will say, "Charon took him"-the miroloy mirrors in its 16-syllable line the lament of Andromache over the body of Hector. At graveside, the chief mourner's voice becomes a howl of hysteria...