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A review by jonfaith
A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube by Patrick Leigh Fermor
5.0
At school some learning by heart was compulsory, though not irksome. But this intake was out-distanced many times, as it always is among people who need poetry, by a private anthology, both of those automatically absorbed and of poems consciously chosen and memorized as though one were stocking up for a desert island or for a stretch of solitary.
The evidence of the "amazing" rating in this instance is that I sat raptured and read all day long.
It wasn't a diversion or an escape from tedium.
No, reading Fermor was enthralling. Most people now know the context where an 18 y/o Fermor in 1933 decides to walk from Holland to Constantinople. So he does. He wrote this trilogy of account over thirty years later and there is a bit of refocusing and jumping outside of the actual experience. That makes a compelling narrative as does his insertion of actual diary entries during his pilgrimage. His mind is filled with poetry, with architecture and painting. he meets interesting people who gloss over thousands of years of history with terse but bold erudition. There isn't a great deal of self doubt here which is possibly a result of mature editing but somehow I think he was simply more purposed. He creates a social event in one singular instance as he fears he is an affront to his potential hosts. he wasn't but isn't able to step back into the situation. he has to proceed with the farce. that is on the instance I encountered and I marvel at that, especially in in reflection of my own life and travel.
I just bought several more volumes of his and am considering sitting by the mailbox in anticipation.
The evidence of the "amazing" rating in this instance is that I sat raptured and read all day long.
It wasn't a diversion or an escape from tedium.
No, reading Fermor was enthralling. Most people now know the context where an 18 y/o Fermor in 1933 decides to walk from Holland to Constantinople. So he does. He wrote this trilogy of account over thirty years later and there is a bit of refocusing and jumping outside of the actual experience. That makes a compelling narrative as does his insertion of actual diary entries during his pilgrimage. His mind is filled with poetry, with architecture and painting. he meets interesting people who gloss over thousands of years of history with terse but bold erudition. There isn't a great deal of self doubt here which is possibly a result of mature editing but somehow I think he was simply more purposed. He creates a social event in one singular instance as he fears he is an affront to his potential hosts. he wasn't but isn't able to step back into the situation. he has to proceed with the farce. that is on the instance I encountered and I marvel at that, especially in in reflection of my own life and travel.
I just bought several more volumes of his and am considering sitting by the mailbox in anticipation.