Word: smiley
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Like so much coming out of the White House, Hillary's anger could be one more piece of spin, which makes it hard to interpret her switch to a hyper-smiley face during a flurry of public appearances at the end of last week. If Hillary had been faking anger because that's what any normal person would feel, she did it well. Rather than say anything herself, she issued a chilly statement of forgiveness through an aide. The Administration seemed eager to disclose that the Martha's Vineyard vacation was a time for "healing." It certainly wasn...
...smoking pot. In fact, their stoned conversation is the funniest thing in the whole episode. Produced by the teams that created Roseanne, The Cosby Show and 3rd Rock from the Sun, That 70's Show is otherwise a typical teen comedy, only with '70s artifacts pasted into it. Satirizing smiley faces and leisure suits is hardly fresh, although there's a sweetness and likability to the cast, led by Eric Foreman. The show may be more sophisticated than its '70s equivalent, Happy Days (also set 20 years before its own time), but that's not saying much...
Fortunately, with Lidie, Smiley proves once again that she can jump through genres with the blink of a metaphorical eye and leaves the `repetitive subject matter' label with the likes of John Grisham and Danielle Steele. She takes the astoundingly courageous story of one pioneer woman, mixes it with a potentially-dry `olde-tyme' writing style and comes up with a tale that takes a few pages to get into, but that takes great effort...
...While Smiley's straightforward style may not be the best method of recounting the almost overwhelming challenges that Lidie faces (both physically and mentally), it keeps the book feeling genuine, and never once lets it digress into a cheap Western adventure-romance dime novel. The author relies a bit too heavily on powers of description, with enormous paragraphs dedicated to describing the finery (or lack thereof) around the heroine. But then again, such descriptions keep the authenticity of the book alive...
...breaking away from the modern-day Midwestern world with A Thousand Acres and Moo, Jane Smiley has gambled--and won. The title character of The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton is much more than Laura Ingalls Wilder all grown up. Lidie confidently balances wonder and practicality to make herself, if not the most memorable literary heroine in recent times, than definitely an enjoyable one. "No one could describe what was true in Kansas or Missouri," she contemplates as she concludes her story. But with good old-fashioned honesty and a surprisingly plucky star, Jane Smiley manages...