Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Audible Audio Edition) Andrew Sachs Lawrence Durrell CSA Word Books
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Bitter Lemons of Cyprus "is not a political book but simply a somewhat impressionistic study of the moods and atmospheres of Cyprus during the troubled years 1953–56." So wrote Lawrence Durrell in the preface to this longtime bestseller. Durrell brilliantly captures the romance, beauty, excitement, and sadness of the island, as well as the lives of the people of Bellapaix. Writing with great affection and lyrical style, Durrell charts the relationships of the inhabitants and the gradual uprising of the Greek Cypriots, who wanted union with Greece. Andrew Sachs inhabits the voices of both Turkish and Greek Cypriots with authenticity and compassion.
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Audible Audio Edition) Andrew Sachs Lawrence Durrell CSA Word Books
During WWII Durrell served as a press attache to the British Embassy. After a life spent in various locales, he moved to Cypress as a private individual, settling in the Greek village of Bellapaix. He wrote this memoir as a tribute to the Cypriot peasantry and the island landscape.Durrell got to know the people of the island by working in many different jobs, eventually serving as an official of the Cyprus government the last two years he was there. The home he chose to make livable was a portion of the ruined monastery of Bellapaix, a Gothic remnant "with huge carved doors made for some forgotten race of giants and their oxen."
This is the third in a trilogy of island books, earlier ones about Corfu and Rhodes. In this last one, Durrell set out to describe the moods and atmospheres on Cyprus during the unfolding of the tragedy (1953-6) when English and Greek governments brought military forces to Cypress to fight for the domination of the island. In a poem to Cypress Durrell wrote, "In an island of bitter lemons, where moon's cool fevers burn ... Beauty, darkness, vehemence ... and the Greek sea's curly head keep its calms like tears unshed."
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Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Audible Audio Edition) Andrew Sachs Lawrence Durrell CSA Word Books Reviews
This is a great book by a giant of literature. A very different book from his others, describing several years he spent in Cyprus at the start of its independence movement. It also shows clearly the amateurism of the British Empire as it wound down. Far from being a well oiled machine, it was quite disorganized and lacking coherent direction. It is also a sympathetic portrait of Cypriots and given the recent economic woes, a useful background. I first read this some years ago, but rereading it gave me new insights into a country I have visited frequently. All of this is in his very stylish and gentle prose.
Lawrence (Larry) Durrell was Public Relations Officer for the British Government on the island colony of Cyprus. As a reporter I knew him well. In Bitter Lemons Larry narrates his personal observations of a way of life rapidly disappearing, the Colonial Empire. Colorful cottages, crusader castles, Byzantine abbeys, picnics with ouzo and commanderia under the olive trees, and the characters -- British, Greek and Turkish Cypriots with their sometimes lovable, sometimes negative peculiarities, but very human idiosyncracies. Larry records a wonderful tapestry of human life in a colony that died in August 1960. Bitter Lemons A work of literary art by a craftsman in love with Aphrodite's isle.
This book covers events on Cyprus that I wasn't aware of - they took place around the time I was born and I don't remember covering them in school. The author paints a wonderful picture of what life on Cyprus was like just before and then during the beginning of the fight to free the island from control by the British. He describes his friendships with people he works with and people in the small village where he buys a house, and how they change as the political situation changes. It is a very personal account and I enjoyed it very much. However, though I have a fairly extensive vocabulary, I was grateful to be reading this on my as I was often in need of the definition for a word.
I'm a great fan of Durrell, and this book fulfills my highest expectations. A story of what happened to the people and culture of Cyprus (what great human hearts these people had!) in the mid-1950's, with powerful, compassionate analysis that sheds light on the situation in Syria, Iran, Greece, etc., today,. ....our attention is especially drawn to what was lacking in Cyprus that the Cypriots' minds supplied by idealizing others (the Greeks) ..... along with the influence of ancient Byzantium -- an influence Western minds apparently can't wrap themselves around. Thanks to for making this book readily available.
I love books like this that explore an area of ideas or the world where it would never have occurred to me to go. Well, this guy was there and had the knowledge (like the Greek language) to understand the situation. I read about the trouble in Cyprus at the time, but understood nothing.
Some may say 'how could a political situation that happened 50 years ago matter now?' Just read the book. It is just great. The subject may not matter to many (I consider it tragic, but no more than an hundred other areas of the world with similar problems), but the fact that this guy was on the ground there is brilliant.
The book is so well written that I think most anyone will be absorbed by the narrative, and lack of knowledge or interest in this remote area will not affect the reading.
I know this is all a little vague, but I'm not the writer Durrell is.
Yes, Durrell's writing as this book begins is overblown, flowery, as some others have said. It starts off as a paean to village life in Cyprus. ( Durrell is caught up in the life of the "noble savage", the Cypriot villagers who live much as they did eons ago. He even buys ,and settles into, a home in an obscure village.) But, then this memoir morphs into a sad look at the push for Cypriot self-determination in the 1950s.
The author changes from an optimistic lover of all things Cyprus to a man who is just not sure where his allegiances lie between the English, Greeks and Turks. To give Durrell credit, he is open-minded on the issues---wants to avoid the problems or postpone them. But, this is not to be. Conflict comes. War comes. He's been hired by the British government. He ultimately is a colonial power.
Durrell's voice is gentle and seems to be of the past--which it is. As a side note, he gives an interesting take on how ordinary villagers become partisans--revolutionaries. This is still applicable today, I think.
During WWII Durrell served as a press attache to the British Embassy. After a life spent in various locales, he moved to Cypress as a private individual, settling in the Greek village of Bellapaix. He wrote this memoir as a tribute to the Cypriot peasantry and the island landscape.
Durrell got to know the people of the island by working in many different jobs, eventually serving as an official of the Cyprus government the last two years he was there. The home he chose to make livable was a portion of the ruined monastery of Bellapaix, a Gothic remnant "with huge carved doors made for some forgotten race of giants and their oxen."
This is the third in a trilogy of island books, earlier ones about Corfu and Rhodes. In this last one, Durrell set out to describe the moods and atmospheres on Cyprus during the unfolding of the tragedy (1953-6) when English and Greek governments brought military forces to Cypress to fight for the domination of the island. In a poem to Cypress Durrell wrote, "In an island of bitter lemons, where moon's cool fevers burn ... Beauty, darkness, vehemence ... and the Greek sea's curly head keep its calms like tears unshed."
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