Word: phobias
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...steadily moved from a first collection of stories (Swimming Lessons) to a prizewinning mid-length novel (Such a Long Journey) to this new epic, which is worthy of the 19th century masters of tragic realism, from Hardy to Balzac. In response, perhaps, to a world that has "a phobia about anything in slow motion," it restores the old-fashioned virtues of attention and compassion...
...fact, it was during a lock-out before my third Justice section during which I realized that my stair-phobia had to end immediately. I looked around the empty Sever Quad, and began to crutch up the six main stairs. Mental power and coordination failing about halfway through, I fell forward on my face...
...stage and announcing casually that he is going to talk about his recent life. His preoccupation has been his impending oral exam in English, which would test all of his knowledge about literature. The strain of this make-or-break test induced constant nausea and what he calls "social phobia," a fear of performing in social situations. Things were only made worse by roommate Oswald, an anti-social computer programmer with a bad habit of urinating in a glass jar in various parts of the apartment. Oswald is both comic relief and a warning of what Marler could turn into...
...disappointing element of the monologue; we never hear enough about Pamela to believe that Marler is interested in her, and when he loses her we don't see it as any kind of defeat. The closest thing we get to an absorbing problem is Marler's struggle with social phobia, which he presents honestly and sympathetically; but this too is unresolved, apparently cured by having passed his exams...
...visit," bringing a two-ton suitcase. Randy is having an affair with a married woman whom she meets intermittently in the bathroom of the gas station where Randy works. Complications arise when Evie Roy (Nicole Parker) shows up at the gas station with an alleged flat tire and a phobia of pressure pumps. Again, the camera watches only their legs as Evie runs around, trying to help Randy and yet stay out of the way ("Oh my God I'm such a spaz!" she cries). The reduced view captures the sexual potential underlying the situation as, inevitably, their legs bump...