Ποικίλη ιστορία (review)

168 Reviews its influencing the journal to favor past texts on Papadiamantis, making it rather antiquarian. The issue also includes Papadiamántis's translation of a story by Bret Hart initially published in a volume entitled ArgonaftikaÃ- diigiseis in 1909. It concludes with short notes and comments mostly by the editor; information on individuals and activities associated with Papadiamantis; reviews of new editions of his poems and stories as well as books on his life and work; and, finally, a diary of talks, conferences, and festivities throughout 1991 organized to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his death. These short pieces are useful; indeed, they provide us with a wealth of concentrated information on current research on Papadiamantis. On the whole, this first issue represents a promising start that one hopes will be extended in coming issues. It is a valuable initiative for coordinating research and a focus for Papadiamantis scholars. My wish is for the journal to maintain its momentum in the years to come and be representative of research carried out on Papadiamantis. In this respect the role of the editor is crucial. I trust that N. D. Triantafillópoulos will exercise his vast and exhaustive knowledge of all aspects of Papadiamántis's work by stimulating debate and encouraging diversity of approach. Since 1974 and the publication of Moullás's edition of the autobiographical stories, Papadiamantis has proved to be a source of controversy, as was seen again during the first International Conference on his life and work held in 1991 on his native island of Skiathos. A short assessment of this conference by D. G. M[avrópoulos], described by him as arbitrary, is published in this issue indicating the passionate divergence of views on Papadiamantis. It seems that what is required for the new journal to be successful and of high academic standard is dispassionate editorship and independence of judgment . Unrestrained adulation of the author and overemphasis on his Orthodox image will serve neither the journal's nor the author's work. The study of Papadiamantis will be enhanced by inclusion, not by exclusion—by accepting different approaches and not unequivocally rejecting them. By inviting constructive dialogue rather than avoiding it, Papadiamantiká Tetrádia should be able to provide the proper forum for an unbiased exchange of views and an airing of fresh interpretations that will highlight the multifaceted character and the richness of Papadiamántis's texts. Dimitris Tziovas University of Birmingham Dimitris Kalokyris. Δημήτϕης Καλοκϕϕης, Ποικίλη ιστοϕία. Athens: Ypsilon. 1991. Pp. 205. 1200 drachmas. "Thanks to the history of free associations, let us be reminded that on the day Michelangelo died Galileo was born, who died on the day Newton was born. In 1734, Voltaire, quite thoughtful, attended Newton's funeral in Reviews 169 Westminster" (p. 98). This reminder is occasioned by an allusion to Newton's legendary apple in Dimitris Kalokyris's phytological and symbolic biography of the "Apple." It is a narrative of allusions and references which extend, in only three paragraphs, from the apple of discord to Apple computers, from the garden of Eden to WUliam Tell, and from folk sayings to New York City, the Big Apple "in the Megáli Idea of our time" (i.e., this contemporary analogue to the now extinct idea of Greek irredentism; p. 99). The story of the apple is one of the nearly eighty texts which comprise Kalokyris's Varia Historia, in the manner of Aelianus's similarly entided collection of excerpts and anecdotes of a paradoxical or moralizing character dealing with human life and history. The Roman author was, among other things, a teacher of rhetoric. To say that students of contemporary rhetoric could find in the Greek author's work a most rigorous compendium of "free associations" is a measure of the praise the book deserves for its attention to language. Moreover, this pleasure of the tongue should make it obvious that the Kalokyris multiple history in its hybrid form of narrated meditations is the work of a poet. "According to the prophecies," explains one of the texts in this variegated story, a child was born on 5 February 1962 who was meant to dominate the world. "About this February child they say that...