The Romance of the Med. Part 1
Here are a few of my favourite photos, capturing
some great moments over the time we have been coming to stay in Lemnos. These pictures convey something of the beauty of the island,
and the enjoyment we and our family and friends have experienced here.
Writers try to capture what it is that intrigues
them about the Mediterranean. They do it with
pictures, words, recipes, histories, and travelogues. I expect we all have some
of their books on our shelves. Below are a few books and novels from my
library. You may have read or seen some of these, and there are many more.
There is no denying that the Med’ is a drawer
card for explorers, tourists, cooks, tavern keepers, academics, journalists, historians,
house hunters, escapists. But, there is one common denominator, they are
romantics all!
Explorers, Cooks, Tavern keepers, Academics, Journalists, Historians, House hunters, Escapists, but Romantics All!
Bouras Gillian.
A Foreign Wife (Penguin Books
Australia Ltd.,1990). This well-known Australian writer tells of her
difficulties accepted as a new wife in a Greek family and in a small village community. She has also
written A Stranger Here (Penguin
Books Australia, 1996). This book is a novel that looks at the lives of three
women and studies their feelings of displacement living in Australia and Greece.
Clift Charmain, Mermaid Singing (Indianapolis,
1956), tells of living with her husband, another
Australian writer, and her children on the island
of Kalimnos in Greece, with a
sponge diving community.
David
Elizabeth. A Book of Mediterranean Food
This is an old Penguin Handbook and one of the first of hers I read, and I
almost devoured all of her books I could find. Her recipe books are a delight
to read. With these books she introduced the English to Mediterranean food just
after the war.
De Vries Susanna. Blue Ribbons and Bitter Bread: The Life of Joice Nankivell Loch (Pandanus Press, 2000). The book tells the life
of an Australian woman who, after an adventurous upbringing in Australia, spent her life helping refugees in Europe. She eventually settled in Greece on the Halkitheki
Peninsula near Mount
Athos. Here she helped villagers find work by reviving their old
carpet-making skills. She was decorated by the Greek Government for her work
with refugees.
Doody Margaret. Aristotle Dectective: The Secrets of Life (Arrow Books, 2004). This
is the third of the Aristotle Detective series, the first two are Aristotle Detective, and Aristotle and Poetic Justice. The
authors knowledge of ancient Greece
is amazingly detailed and visual. Though the cast of ‘thousands’, all with
Greek names is daunting, especially for a non-Greek.
Drinkwater, Carol. The Olive Route:
A Personal Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean (Orion Publishing Co., 2007) With many interesting
stories of people she visited along the way Drinkwater tells of her travels
around the Mediterranean to find out more
about the history of olive growing.
Durrell Gerald. My Family and Other Animals (Penguin Books 2004), and Laurence Durrell, Bitter Lemons (Axios Press, 2009). These books are filled with the
joy and pleasures of expats living in vibrant Greek communities, the first is
about Corfu, the second about living in Cyprus.
Fortescue Lady., Perfume from Provence (Black Swan 1920) was written in the early
1930s. In it she talks about moving to live in a village in France with her
husband. She describes her house and garden with great affection, mixed with a
few local anecdotes.
Gage Eleni. North
of Ithaka (Bantam Press, 2004). Eleni is the daughter of Nicholas Gage who
wrote a book called Eleni about his mother. This book was later made into a
film and it told of her imprisonment and execution during the Greek Civil War.
Eleni, the grandaughter, goes back to rebuild the family house. This is the
book that most echoes our building adventures while also drawing on references
to the family’s past.
Greene Jeffery.
French Spirits:A House, a Village,
and a Love Affair in Burgundy
(Harper Perennial, 2003) Greene tells in lyrical prose the story of turning and
old presbytery into a home. He is an American poet and I find his account
charmingly sympathetic to the neighbourhood and house.
Hislop Victoria., The Thread (Headline Publishing Group, 2011). This novel tells the
story of a family living in Thessolinki. It is based largely on Mark Mazower’s
book, however the novel involves a family with multi-racial connections telling
their story, and that of Saloniki, from 1917 to 2007.
Humphrey John and Christopher. Blue Skies and Black Olives (Hodder
& Stoughton Ltd., 2010). A tale of house building in Greece, written by a father who is an ex BBC
journalist, and who does up a cottage in a part of Greece where his son is already
living and bringing up a family.
Kazantzakis Nikos., Zorba the Greek, translated by Carl Wildman (Faber and Faber Ltd.,1961). In some ways this book shocked me,
but it did prepare me for what it might be like to live in a small very tightly
organised Greek community.
Klimi Julia, At
Home in Greece (Thames and Hudson,) Julia Klimi gained access to
thirty-five private homes and has captured the very Greek essence of each,
though each is very different.
Miller Henry. The Colossus of Maroussi, (first published in 1941, republished in
Penguin Books 1950). This book is an impressionistic account of Miller’s
travels through Greece as a very young and poor
writer. He arrived at the invitation of Lawrence Durrell and left as World War
Two loomed.
Mole John., Its
All Greek to Me! (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2004). This book is about an
English banker who came to Greece and lived
there 30 years. This is very much a story of house building in Greece.
Perry Clay, Boleman-Herring and Fermor Patrick
Leigh. Vanishing Greece
(Conran Octopus, 1991). This is a photographic essay on Greece
introduced by Patrick Leigh Fermor who, like Clay Perry, had conducted a
passionate love affair with Greece over many
years. Elizabeth Boleman-Herring, another philhellene, has written the text.
All three are aware that by the end of the twentieth century the landscape and
the traditional way of life may have changed irrevocably.
Roland, Betty. Lesbos; The Pagan Island (F. W. Cheshire Pty Ltd.,1963). In
1961 Roland spent a year on the island
of Lesbos.
This Australian author spent an interesting time on this island, one of the
closest islands to Lemnos. Lesbos houses the
municipality of the Northern Aegean, and so is more politically important than Lemnos
however there are close ties between these two island, and many Lemians marry
folk from Lesbos.
Slesin, Suzanne, Stafford
Cliff and Daniel Rozensztroch Daniel. photography by Gilles de Chabaneix, Greek Style (Thames and Hudson, 1988).
This book is one of a series dealing with the unique decorating style of
particular countries. In this book they show the range of styles found in Greece, from that of the northern mainland with its
mountain and oriental influence, to that found in the Cyclades, Ionian and Dodecanese islands, with their white-washed fishing
villages.
Stoeltie, Barbara and Rene. Living in Greece (Taschen Germany, 2002) The two photographers have photographed
twenty two different houses, illustrating the way in which detail supplies
atmosphere.
Stone Tom, The
Summer of my Greek Taverna (Simon and Shuster, 2003). This is the story of
an American who moved to Greece, and lived there
for 22 years. He describes some of the Greek characters he got to know and
includes a lot about his cooking experiences, plus recipes. He has also written
Greek dictionaries and phrase books.
Zable, Arnold. Sea of Many Returns (Text Publishing, Melbourne Australia, 2010)
In this book the author discusses the seagoing life of many who live on Ithaka.
He draws on his own experiences of returning to Ithaca
with his Greek wife over the years. Although this island is far from Lemnos,
and set in another sea, this story reveals how many Greeks journeyed past
Lemnos on their way to trade around the shores of the Black
Sea.
Zinovieff Sofka., Eurydice Street, a place in Athens
(Granta Publications, 2004). The
writer marries a Greek. This book details the first year of her life after the
couple with their two daughters move back to live in Athens. She writes knowingly about the rites and
rituals that Greek families all observe, and quite lot about what it means to
live in Athens.
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