Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres

'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' is a beautifully written novel, at times funny, at times sad but always engaging. It is set on the Greek island of Cephalonia. It covers a period spanning from just before the Second World War and continues through the Italian and later German occupation of the island to the present. THE STORY On the small Greek island of Cephalonia the local village doctor Iannis and his daughter Pelagia have simple but satisfying lives. Pelagia his engaged to marry Mandras a local fisherman unfortunately this idyllic situation is destroyed by the onset of war. Mandras joins the army and later the Greek partisans, as time goes by ...  Read the complete review

I was unsure of what to expect when I started reading this book – I had read rave reviews, I had seen newspaper articles systematically dismantling what they perceived as a distortion of historical events, and of course I’d been exposed to the whole media circus surrounding the release of the film that is based on the book. That probably prompted me to read it, because it seemed to be one of those stories that would just be better to read, rather than seeing the soft-focus Hollywood adaptation on the silver screen. I was just a bit too late though, because as soon as the character of Captain Corelli appears, the only face I could put to him was that of ...  Read the complete review

1941. Invasion of Greece by the Italians is imminent. Dr Iannis and his beautiful daughter, Pelagia, live a tranquil existence in their village home. They have a menagerie of pets, among which Pelagia’s goat, with its ‘slotted eyes’, notorious for consuming the results of Dr Iannis’s writings on the history of Cephallonia. (The lively opening paragraph sets the tone, pace and style of the book: “Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse. He had attended a surprisingly easy calving, lanced one abscess, extracted a molar, dosed one lady of easy virtue with Salvarsan, ...  Read the complete review

Some novels are emotional, some stimulate thought, some educate the reader slightly as to a time or a place, some books make you laugh and some are written for pure entertainment. Some novels are written in beautiful expressive language, which creates an image in the readers mind and some use sharp quick prose to move the plot along. It is a rare event when a book combines all of these factors and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin combines all this and more. This is quite simply the best book that I have read this year. Better than White Teeth, better than Chocolat and better than Small World. Ok, so you know the bias, I loved this book, lets tell you about ...  Read the complete review

I've seen the film Captain Corelli's Mandolin and wasn't overly impressed. It was ok in a bit of a syrupy way, but it didn't have much going for it except stunning scenery and a predictable love story. People have said that the book is so much better than the film, which is often the case with films adapted from the book. After seeing the book at my local library I decided to give it a try. It is an extremely good book and the film didn't come close to it's range and subtlety. Most of the book is set on the Greek Island of Cephallonia during the war years. I found the book quite hard to get into at first, but was really glad that ...  Read the complete review