Reviews for The Greek Islands

The average rating for The Greek Islands based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-14 00:00:00 Jose Augusto Freitas Sob One-third poetry, one-third character, and one-third history. And short, under 200 pages. It is a perfect book and I've now read it half a dozen times. Preface it with "Prospero's Cell" (about Corfu) and follow it with "Bitter Lemons" (about Cyprus), then read the Alexandria Quartet. He's one of the great writers of English literature and mercifully so out of favor and fashion that no academic and no critic can butcher him and reduce him. He's a writer for readers. There's a joy to reading Durrell that's like a breeze on the back of your neck. He's poetry is also remarkably good. The one about Manoli and the rose is the equal to any poem in English. I wrote Durrell, having gotten his address from a professor of mine. After I sent it he died. There are no living writers like Durrell and precious few who have ever lived and none who captured just that sinuous current of observation and feeling he did. Thank God he, like Robinson Jeffers, remains unknown. They are essay-proof and beloved of Heaven, but more so, of earth.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-12-04 00:00:00 Thomais Johnston It is five star quality, an evocation of a past. The opening pages must be some of the best opening pages ever written. The army boat, off course because of a running storm; Gideon and his little dog Homer; the landing, not in Cyprus or Beirut confidently prophesised by Gideon, but in Rhodes where they are scheduled to arrive. Later, Hoyle; met over the trunks and suitcases that belong to him; objects cursed for being in the way and by extension Hoyle is seen as an object in the way. The reality is very different. Four stars because of one or two racist remarks and sexist inferences that one can't ignore. One would like to gloss by them but justice dictates not. Don't be put off though, visit the world before tourism over ran it. Durrell's writing even has glow worms of the future in beams of prose. 'The Aegean is still waiting for its painter.' Well is it?