Word: spiros
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...rise and fall of a young Greek spiv of the postwar dead-beat generation. The book's larger theme is the old motif of American innocence v. European corruption. Reflected in the golden eye of a Mediterranean setting, what is sordid and depraved becomes corrosively hilarious. Spiro Polymerides is a sun-baked peasant Apollo. He is taken up by an arty, effeminate, high-minded official of a U.S. relief mission in Athens. To fiftyish Irvine Stroh, Spiro is a kind of male Liza Doolittle, whom he goes about refashioning in his own cultural image. Actually, Irvine is an emotional...
...Eventually Spiro is infected with the virus of sophistication, lands in the arms of Helen Bristow, a lonely, pliable American matron of about 45 who likes to play with Greek fire. Unfortunately for her, Spiro soon develops a rage to leave-for a pastry-plump Hellenic miss whose shipping-magnate daddy happens to be loaded with sugar. When Helen commits suicide, Spiro suffers a bad quarter-hour's remorse; it is nothing compared to the remorse he suffers after he marries the millionaire's daughter and discovers that wily old papa has cut the newlyweds off without...
...novel's end, this social Spirochete has destroyed or degraded each life with which he has come in contact. Spiro may be a human parasite, but at least he is true to his instinctual self. The Irvines and Helen Bristows are spiritual nomads, Author King implies, with no selves to be true to. They sleepwalk through reality, wrapped in romantic visions and do-good illusions, until (paraphrasing Eliot) human voices wake them and they drown...
Lawrence Ekpebu of Lowell, Chitranjan Kapur of Winthrop, and Lionel B. Spiro of Leverett, were chosen to represent the class of '60. Both Dogherty and Gracey had expressed opinions favoring changes in the present status of the Student Council, whereas Leland criticized any plan for a referendum on the matter...
LIONEL B. SPIRO, Leverett; Jubilee Committee; University Band; House Dance Committee...