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miss_nomers103 's review for:
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
by Lawrence Durrell
Gorgeous and elegiac and poetic and conversational. Just delightful.
I get the impression that Lawrence Durrell was a bit of a cad. Still, he managed to live in some beautiful places at interesting times, and writes about them gloriously.
This book takes place in Cyprus in the 50’s. It’s sleepy backward charm is described in the first half when Durrell moves there to live cheaply and well, building a house, writing poetry and befriending his Greek neighbours. But the tides of Enosis and Greek nationalism soon overtake him and the short-sighted (naive, exceptionalist?) British colonial government. The second half details the island’s civil unrest and the government’s increasingly martial response.
It’s all written with Durrell’s ‘sensitive and muscular prose’ (from one of the reviews on the cover, what exactly does that mean - I can tell you that he was extremely perceptive to beauty and really liked to drink), and very very sad.
4.5 stars. Almost perfect except for the vintage British patronising tone. He loved the Greek ‘peasants’ but found them slightly ridiculous.
I get the impression that Lawrence Durrell was a bit of a cad. Still, he managed to live in some beautiful places at interesting times, and writes about them gloriously.
This book takes place in Cyprus in the 50’s. It’s sleepy backward charm is described in the first half when Durrell moves there to live cheaply and well, building a house, writing poetry and befriending his Greek neighbours. But the tides of Enosis and Greek nationalism soon overtake him and the short-sighted (naive, exceptionalist?) British colonial government. The second half details the island’s civil unrest and the government’s increasingly martial response.
It’s all written with Durrell’s ‘sensitive and muscular prose’ (from one of the reviews on the cover, what exactly does that mean - I can tell you that he was extremely perceptive to beauty and really liked to drink), and very very sad.
4.5 stars. Almost perfect except for the vintage British patronising tone. He loved the Greek ‘peasants’ but found them slightly ridiculous.