A Greek tragedy (Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres)

Member Name: Belgian999

Product:	Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
Date:	11/04/02 (566 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautifully written, compelling style and content

Disadvantages: Some questions about historical accuracy...

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 Nicolas Cage, which is a shame as half the fun of reading a novel lies in visualising the people you read about in your own way.

Still, that one gripe aside, I thought this was one of the most beautifully written books I had read in a long, long time. The story flows effortlessly from page to page, spans three generations of one family and dips in and out of various bloody episodes in the history of Greece as a whole and Cephallonia in particular, without ever adopting a dry and dispassionate tone. You get too see a life of contented poverty on this tiny Greek island before the onset of war, then you feel how the people struggled through the occupation by Axis forces and oppression by their own people, before the land was torn asunder by a far greater power beneath the Earth’s crust.

This is not just a story of life on Cephallonia though; it is a story of love and desire, unrequited and forbidden passions burning in the hearts of young and old alike. The beautiful local girl, Pelagia, growing up under the watchful eye of her widower father Dr Iannis (a respected and valued member of the island community thanks to his medical expertise), meets and falls for the charms of Mandras, a rough and ready lad who sweeps her off her feet. However, war breaks out and Mandras proposes to Pelag
ia before heading for the hills to join the partisan resistance, leaving his betrothed to wait for him as the Italian forces occupy the island, but her love for him slowly wanes as he does not reply to her letters.

You are also introduced to the other inhabitants of the village – the bloated, drunken priest who suddenly finds his vocation with the arrival of the enemy, the incredibly ugly mother of Mandras, and the Atlas-like Velisarios. Life for the men revolves around the kapheneion, which I imagine to be akin to the village hall, except that it is the exclusive preserve of the men, whose days seem to consist of sitting, talking politics, listening to the radio and occasionally checking to make sure that their wives and daughters are keeping the house clean and that dinner is on the table. Pelagia and her father enjoy an unconventional relationship as she is not the downtrodden black-clad drudge who does nothing but scrub and clean, which reflects her life as a whole – she is the one who later decides to cross the moral boundaries laid down by history, and breaks with social conventions.

The eponymous Captain Corelli doesn’t make an appearance until the story is well under way, an interesting device that I felt worked extremely well in this case. Quite often, authors decide to throw every character at the reader within the first few pages, which can lead to confusion as there is then very limited time and space to provide the background information that makes a name on a page become a credible character, and somehow jump out of the book and into your head. This way, the scene was set for one of the main players to step onto the stage, and the character of Corelli seems to fit perfectly with the admittedly idealised picture of life that has been painted for the reader.

By the time the Italians land, you feel totally at home with life on the island – you know who is a royalist and who is a communist, you know which
man thought he was deaf but had a pea lodged in his ear (bizarre as that may sound...), you know who tends the herd of goats high up in the hills, and you know quite a bit about the history of the Greek islands, thanks to Iannis’ inner monologue and his attempts at writing a history of his homeland. The islanders are supposed to hate the occupying forces, but of course when two soldiers are forcibly billeted in the family home, Pelagia finds herself slowly and inexorably drawn to the charms of the young officer who has now commandeered her room.

You know this is coming, that’s the whole point of the story, but the subject is dealt with so sensitively that you are never quite, quite sure whether your original thoughts were correct. The haunting music of the mandolin is what first catches Pelagia’s attention, and events move on gracefully from there. The tentative courtship is described very gently, with stolen caresses and furtive glances seeming to leap from the page as the two young lovers (in the purest sense of the word) gradually move closer to one another, spending forbidden hours in each other’s company in an abandoned house in the woods.

Although this is the main story, you are never allowed to lose sight of the other strands of history and fiction that weave seamlessly in and out of Pelagia and Antonio’s relationship. There is the touching and sad story of Carlo, Corelli’s faithful adjutant, who is hiding a broken heart and a secret that can never be revealed as long as he is a professional soldier, yet who proves himself to be the most loyal and reliable friend anyone could ever wish for. You suffer with Carlo and the Italian troops as they are battered and harried by fanatical Greek soldiers in the mountains during Mussolini’s ill-fated attempts to expand the new Roman empire. You meet the partisans in the mountains, whose acts of liberation amount to little more than threatening and robbing th
e people they are allegedly protecting, and growing fat on the proceeds. You cannot help but laugh at the absurd British officers who parachute in behind enemy lines to try and co-ordinate resistance, dressed in ridiculous garb and speaking ancient Greek, which is beautifully parodied with Shakespearean English.

In short, you get used to life under Italian occupation, and the swift sea change that heralds the assumption of power by the Germans, and then the end of the war, is rendered unexpected as the reader has been lulled into a sense of security and routine after two years with the lackadaisical Italians in control, much as the islanders themselves had been. Does the story have a happy ending? Well, that would be telling – suffice to say that you will sort of see what is coming, but probably not in the way that you first thought. Time is suddenly compressed and the story speeds on to more recent times, which does detract a little from the languid style of the rest of the book, I felt.

Many questions have been raised about the accuracy of the book – would Pelagia’s fraternisation with the enemy really have been tolerated by everyone else? How true are the author’s ruminations on the nature of history, and the behaviour of the Italian and German soldiers? How accurate are Louis de Bernieres’ assertions with regard to the actions of the partisans during and after the war? There were many enraged responses to the portrayal of partisans as idle vagabonds who acted purely for personal gain, proving themselves to be bloodthirsty and callous and preferring to let others do the fighting.

I’m no expert on Greek history and I don’t know the truth behind this, but you have to trust the author to have done his homework. Indeed, de Bernieres himself states that he is eternally grateful for the historical help he received, and the historians should not be held responsible for his interpretation of the mater
ial. And that is what this book is about, an interpretation of history, combined with several enduring love stories. This is meant to put a smile on your face and make you basically feel good about the world - it’s a novel, not a textbook. It is beautifully written, with some genuinely touching moments, and you feel like you have got to know the characters, and seen them live, love and die. A wonderful book, which I recommend wholeheartedly.

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