Dreaming of a Greek island... Captain Corelli's Mandolin by L. de Bernières

I found this book in a charity shop. Had never heard of it before but it just felt right to get it. I paid very little for the tired book and started reading it that same evening. I can't actually believe someone got rid of this treasure.

Prognosis is simple enough - we get to hear a few different narratives of the inhabitants and occupiers of a Greek island Cephallonia before, during and after the Second World War. The main thread is of course the story of love between a charming Italian officer and a young local Greek woman. The film with Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz depicts this part of the novel, I presume (I haven’t seen it myself but after reading the book I know that it must have been so hard to deliver equally as good a portrait of events).

 Yet, the novel is so much more than this particular love theme. Other relationships are almost as captivating (for example the father-daughter dynamics between Doctor Iannis and his daughter Pelagia, Carlo’s platonic love and admiration for Corelli, or Pelagia’s devotion to her never-to-be mother-in-law Drosoula). I enjoyed getting to know the different characters from their own points of view. None of them dull or two-dimensional. I loved the backdrop of epic historical events affecting the fate of the characters.

Is it historically accurate? I don’t know. Probably not entirely. But it’s one of those books that you fall in love with from the first page, possibly the first paragraph. The language is so poetic and witty you want to savour every word from the beginning till the very end. I felt genuinely happy, heartbroken, bemused and devastated at different times whilst reading it. It was so evocative and hypnotic that it left me longing for a simple life on a Greek island, in times not so long ago when it wasn’t yet a tourist hub.

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‘What’s the news of the war?’

The doctor twisted the ends of his moustache and said, ‘Germany is taking everything, the Italians are playing the fool, the French have run away, the Belgians have been overrun whilst they were looking the other way, the Poles have been charging tanks with cavalry, the Americans have been playing baseball, the British have been drinking tea and adjusting their monocles, the Russians have been sitting on their hands except when voting unanimously to do whatever they are told. Thank God we are out of it. Why don’t we turn on the radio?’

 ◈

‘Of the German occupation there is little to say, except that it caused the islanders to love more nearly the Italians they had lost. It seldom happens that a people can bring themselves to learn affection for their oppressors, but hardly since Roman times had there been any other kind of rule.’

◈

The old man stood up. He looked about him and said, ’This was a beautiful place. I had the best years of my life here. And do you know what? I was going to marry your grandmother once. I think it’s about time I saw her again. By the way, that mandolin used to be mine, but I’ve heard you play, and I’d like you to keep it. I shall waive my rights.’

As the two of them walked down the hill, Iannis said, ‘The biggest man in the worlds is Velisarios.’

‘Porco dio, is he still alive as well?’

Iannis faltered in his steps, ‘If you’re the one who played the mandolin and was going to marry Grandma… does that mean you’re the ghost?’ A prodigal and autumnal sun broke briefly through the cloud over Lixouri, and the old man paused for thought.




Love,
V&W


(top photo of Cephalonia: NinasCreativeCorner; book photo: V&W)