No comments about Michelin NEOS Guide Greek Islands, 1e.

No comments about Winds of Crete.

No comments about The Rough Guides' Athens Directions 2 (Rough Guide Directions).

No comments about Corfu Pocket Guide, 4th Edition (Berlitz Pocket Guides).

1 comments about Travellers Crete, 2nd (Travellers - Thomas Cook).

1. Travellers Crete, 2nd (Travellers - Thomas Cook)
   
   I've spent months exploring Crete with several different guide books; some good, some inadequate, and some filled with errors. Thomas Cook's guide is the best for accurate background information, cultural context, and precise directions.

5 comments about Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corcyra (Corfu).

1. The English writer Lawrence Durrell spent four years on the island of Corfu together with his first wife Nancy Myers in the years 1935-1939. He has collected his memoirs on this period during his staying in Alexandria during the WWII.

   Prospero's Cell evades genre classification. It is an autobiography, but not a particularly factual one - for instance, along with Lawrence and Nancy, the whole Durrell family - his mother, two brothers and sister - came to live on Corfu for the same period, a fact he only acknowledges in a passing remark or two. It is written in a form of a diary, but the story flows without paying any attention on the interpunctuating dates. It claims to be a guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corfu, but is useless as such. It spends a considerable time discussing the history and myths concerning Corfu, but the material is not laid out in a systematic and scholarly manner, and is probably of low value as a historical text.

   Apart from ephemeral characters, the four personae make out the main cast: apart from Lawrence and his wife, there is also a doctor, biologist and polymath, Dr. Theodore Stephanides, and a bohemian Armenian journalist, Ivan Zarian. (Both are actual persons, of course; apart from here, Stephanides also appears on Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, and Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi.) However, Durrell has taken the liberty to interrupt occasionally this chronicle of their living, their thoughts etc. with a treatise on the Saint Spiridon, the island patron; or Karaghiosis, the puppet theatre hero; or a long treatise on the island history and myths concerning it. Prospero's cell ends with "some peasant remedies in common use against disease", a "synoptic history of the island of Corfu", lists of places to see, things to visit etc., and finally concludes with an anthology of letters written by Edward Lear, an English painter who spent on Corfu several years in mid-19th century.

   Durrel's language is like brocade: rich, heavy and very sophisticated. He is too serene and spiritual to talk humour, even when the topic is indeed funny, e.g. the accident with the Corfu fire brigade, the Zarian's obsession with "Mantinea 1936" and the Stephanides' confusion with the brain cutlets, he merely cites the narrator. Still, it is a nice holiday reading, an intellectual supplement to any *real* guide to Corfu you happen to take with you. And, while you are there, don't forget to get yourself Hilary Whitton Paipeti's guide, In the Footsteps of Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell in Corfu (1935-39), which will help you connect the world of Durrells with the contemporary Corfu.




2. William Durrell's investigation of modern love in THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET announced the author's interest in blending geography and metaphysics, which probably originates in his Indian heritage.

   The Corfu that the British author knew in 1936-7 might have disappeared already, yet his romantic portrayal of Mediterranean culture captures the spirit that despite inevitable historic changes and the ravashes of modernisation still prevails on the coasts of this historic sea. The bittersweet mixture of melancholy and happiness that is at the soul of everything Mediterranean, and even his philosophical reflections are impregnated with the soft sensualism in which the Mediterranean tradition of tolerance and antiquity is embodied.

   PROSPERO'S CELL was published in 1945, four years after the author had left the island, and thus the nostalgia that pervades his writing further contributes to the beauty of this book. Some narrative chapters seem far-fetched in their anglicising romanticism, like the moonlight discussions on "Greekness" with the rich and bohemian Count D., but still Durrell's passionate portrayal of Greece should help enliven some rainy winter afternoons.




3. I've lost track of how many times I've read "Prospero's Cell." Durrell's use of metaphor and simile is at times brilliant; it is always interesting. Every time I return to "Prospero," I become Durrell's companion, walking the cobblestone streets, swimming in aquarium-clear waters, treading grapes. He has the finest understanding of Greek character I've ever seen in a non-Greek. His honest respect and affection are so real. The books of he and his brother Gerald ignited the mid-twentieth century tourist boom to Greece. Deservedly so!
   
   Reviewed by David Lundberg, author of Olympic Wandering: Time Travel Through Greece



4. ... this book is probably excellent. Poetic at times, amusing at others, and funny almost always, it's a good read and a nice introduction into the landscapes and people of Corfu. You get to know Zarian, Nicholas, N., and the rest of the uncanny people that seemed to be the expatriate tribe in Corfu at the time.
   However (I wouldn't have given it 3 stars if there weren't a "however"), that's not always what you're looking for in a travel book. If you're into Theroux, you'll probably find this book boring at times, too intent on seeking brilliant metaphors.



5. This is a wonderfully poetic, sophisticated, and learned story of the isle of Corfu as experienced by Lawrence Durrell during a two-year idyll there in 1937 and 1938. Durrell was young (mid-twenties), he was still married to the first of his four wives, Corfu was beautiful and unspoiled, life there had changed little for generations, and World War II was yet to come. (When it did erupt, Durrell remained on Corfu until the fall of Greece, but he does not date any of the entries in this book, save the last, later than 1938.) Durrell wrote the book in 1945. Thus, it is scarcely surprising that there is a distinct sense of nostalgia, that the book is almost elegaic for a Corfu that, in 1938, was still a place out of time -- but by 1945, who knew? And we, reading it 60 years later, know all to well that globalistic forces have overwhelmed the Corfus of the world.
   
   The book proceeds gracefully back and forth among anecdotes about Durrell's life on Corfu and his circle of friends there (all of whom are true characters and quite engaging); tales of history, mythology, and folklore; evocative descriptions of the land and sea; accounts of local practices and customs and livelihoods (principally fishing); snapshots of the Greeks as a people; philosophizing; and on and on. Throughout the writing is leisurely and superb. I compiled a lengthy list of striking quotes, but here I will limit myself to several examples.
   
   On the Greeks: "The loquacity, the shy cunning, the mendacity, the generosity, the cowardice and bravery, the almost comical inability of self-analysis." Or, "We Greeks are not religious, we are superstitious and anarchic. Even death is less important than politics."
   
   On land and sea: "The little bay lies in a trance, drugged with its own extraordinary perfection -- a conspiracy of light, air, blue sea, and cypresses. The rock faces splinter the light and reflect it both upward and downward; so that, staring through the broken dazzle of the Ionian sun, the quiet bather in his boat can at the same time look down into three fathoms of water with neither rock nor weed to interrupt the play of imagination . . .."
   
   On local customs (and on time): "Not that time itself is anything more than a word here. Peasant measurement of time and distance is done by cigarettes. Ask a peasant how far a village is and he will reply, nine times out of ten, that it is a matter of so many cigarettes."
   
   PROSPERO'S CELL (the title comes from speculation that Corfu was Prospero's island in Shakespeare's "The Tempest") is often classified as a travel book, but that doesn't really do it justice. It is virtually sui generis. If you are going to spend some time on Corfu, by all means read it (in addition to your Fodor's or other generic "travel guide"). But even if you are not fortunate enough to have been to or be going to Corfu, or even if you do not normally enjoy "travel books", you may very well luxuriate in this literate, sophisticated, and poetic book of a place and time that are no more. It is a splendid gem.

2 comments about Papas' Greece.

1. I just happened upon this treasure of a book and was instantly charmed. The illustrations and paintings capture quirky characters in fluid, vibrant colors. The story of the Papas' life in Greece moves sweetly with the pictures - too brief, but a total delight



2. Tess and Bill share glimpses into the life in rural Greece in the seventies. The vexing and endearing qualities of the Greek people are brought to light through both the stories and the artwork. You feel their experiences with a chuckle.

No comments about Pick Your Brains About Greece (Pick Your Brains - Cadogan).

1 comments about The Greek File: Images From a Mythic Land.

1. You will swear that some of these images are pencil drawings and others a part of a dream. William Abranowicz is a gifted photographer whose passion for pristine landscapes and still life reinvents this artform. As a collector of his work, I was thrilled to see his first book published. The world has enjoyed his images without knowing they were enjoying the world through his eyes. Through his lens, we see a world that invites all the senses to be aroused. I will cherish this book as a personal treasure from my friend.

No comments about Athens By Neighborhood.