Victoria
Hislop is an English writer, however she is known for writing stories and
novels on Greek people and culture. Either she loves Greek culture or wanted to
create a different field of interest as a writer. For example, Wilbur Smith’s
novels are based out of Africa – with backdrop as both modern as well as ancient.
She writes well, language is as high as of expected from the British authors.
But sadly, her stories are insipid: they talk too much about the setting,
people, their minds, etc…etc. But a firm plot or charming pace is totally missing.
One such bad
book is ‘The Last Dance and Other Stories’. The front and the back covers of
the book are full of praises from elite newspapers and critics. That’s all paid
marketing. This book consists of ten short stories, all set in Greek (modern
day Greece).
The first
story of the book ‘The Priest and the Parrot’ is an interesting read; this
story discusses the silent plight of a young priest who decides to remain
celibate all his life for the sake of being saint and religious. Well,
eventually he falls in love with a school teacher, Katrina, whom he cured when
she went down with almost irrecoverable fever. Also the setting is intrigued
because it has been shown that the village has lesser women population than men.
So amidst this situation, where every young girl, mid-aged widow, and many
other ladies count the passing-by men on the street, then how a priest can be
spared? In short, this story explores the loneliness feeling that continuously
challenges the soft and hedonistic part of the priest. And every time he has to
remind himself that he is made for God work not for spending time on love and
infatuation.
And the
remaining stories are mediocre with nothing to highlight about characters and
their moods. Even some stories are plot less. On a plus side, Victoria has
succeeded in penning down the everyday Greek life associated with characters
and the storyline.
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