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Summary: Not a summer "beach"book!
Review: Wow,a superstar of a novel. Picked it up in Italy in May because it seemed that everywhere I went, people were reading it..on trains, planes, by the pool and in cafes. Thought it would be light reading..Instead it is a gripping tale full of irony,wit,humor,historical fact and some of the best character portrayals I have ever read. Read it slowly, digest it. You'll laugh, cry, and wish the story wouldn't end.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book but where is the ending?
Review: I just loved this book and really got involved with its characters and story line. Where can I get myself a Corelli?!! This book is well worth the read but be forwarned that the author seems to run out of story at the end and just leaves you hanging with out resolving the major plot.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: This book starts off a bit slow, and it was hard to stay interested for the first 100 pages or so. It was totally worth sticking it out, however, because the last 300 were absolutely amazing. You always hear reviewers say, "You'll laugh, you'll cry," but in this case, it's absolutely true. I've never cried over a book before or become truly attached to the characters, but I was totally enamoured with Pelagia, Corelli, even more minor characters like Carlo, whose valor raises the whole "is he or isn't he?" debate over Corelli's fate. I sobbed at the end. Read it. Slowly. Enjoy it. Stop every 10 pages or so and let it all sink in. You'll love it.
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Summary: Live the Book
Review: Once in a while a gem of a book comes along that redeems all the trash that's published along with it. This is that book. Now that I found it, I want to share the treasure with you. This book describes the occupation of the peaceful Greek island of Cephallonia during WW2 by peaceful Italians soldiers, including a captain whose obsession is with playing the mandolin. The use of images is breathtaking, especially those about the travails the soldiers went through on both sides and a haunting description of a firing squad. Also laudable are the uses of subtle allusions to Greek myths, as well as the virtuosic switching of narrators that made the story more lively. I give it four stars because the end dragged and the authors portrayed the Italian soldiers as saints, while the Germans were murderous, the Greeks insincere, and the British insouciant. But altogetherm this is a great book. Why do you need a movie when you can live the book?
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Summary: An idiosyncratic and sweeping romantic epic
Review: Following the success of "Saving Private Ryan", World War II films have become very popular. "Corelli's Mandolin", the gripping account of how a pastoral Greek island populated with all sorts of intriguing characters is affected by the war, will soon join the ranks of World War II films to grace the silver screen. Given the unbelievably broad scope of the story, I have no idea how director John Madden, whose previous directing credits include "Shakespeare in Love", is going to pull it off.Regardless of how good or bad the film will be, at least it will send readers in droves to read this irresistible tome. A perfect blend of tragedy and offbeat comedy, "Corelli's Mandolin" centers around the cataclysmic effects of war on a community, but it also shows how that community eventually adapts and heals itself. Every character has personality and they are too life-sized to be characterized as merely good or evil; many of the book's characters are capable of both. Rather than tell the story from one perspective, de Bernieres's focus floats from character to character, where at one time we may be reading the words of an omniscient storyteller in third-person, only to be reading the fleeting thoughts of one of the main characters in the next chapter, only to read anti-war tract written by two of the main characters in a later chapter, only to read journal entries documenting one character's agony about keeping a painful secret. Each point-of-view is unique and de Bernieres manages to keep the story moving despite the conitunous changes in style. Although his earlier work (e.g., the trilogy which began with "The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts") suffered from overdoses of style and random lapses of weirdness at the expense of narrative, this time around de Bernieres never loses sight of the story he is telling. Chances are, it's a story that you won't be able to put down.
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Summary: Heartbreak to finish
Review: I had never heard of this book until the film came out. I didn't go to see the film as the title was perhaps the soppiest I had heard in years. Anyway, on a recent holiday to the Turkish coast I had run out of reading material and had to resort to my girlfriend's copy of this book. Was I surprised. This book was so interesting, moving, funny, I could not put it down - at the expense of my vacation. So many stifling hot mediterranean afternoons and balmy evenings on the balcony were spent pouring over this fine piece, imagining a world not so far away - in location at least. However by the time I got to the last 50 pages, I found that it was SO difficult to finish, not because of anything negative but because it broke my heart to read on. It's emotion get's right into your heart and soul. This book had me thinking of the characters a week after I had eventually finished it. There can be no greater tribute to a book than that. I still have not seen the film, but I'm sure that there is no way it can live up to the book.
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Summary: Atmospheric and evocative, with memorable characters
Review: The author's descriptions of the island are powerful and make you feel as if you've entered another world, a world that you see through the eyes of the characters. The visual imagery is stunning, but the author uses the other senses, too, so that you can smell and taste and hear the world that he describes so vividly. As for the characters, what a memorable group! This is one of those books where the basic elements of setting, plot, and character are so equally developed that the finished result is a masterpiece. Highly recommended, and probably one that you should read before you see the film. In a way, it's too bad that they've made a movie of it, because you don't really need to see it on the screen to see it in your mind. But I'll reserve judgment of the film until I've seen it myself. Meanwhile, read the book!
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Gem
Review: A rare gem, wish there were ten stars to give this book - did not want it to end. I found deBernieres' style even more effervescent than Gabriel Garcia Marquezes. DeBernieres engages all our emotions - from the pleasure of beautifully colorful language, to laughter, to compassion, to tears, to anger, and finally to a quiet sleepy closure. He even manages to evoke our emotions in his plot decisions as well, as evidenced by many a reader's debate over the ending, but I suspect he wanted it that way. The book is at the same time an uplifting joyous read and a heartbreaking account of human suffering. Please Mr. deBernieres, give us more!
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Summary: A profoundly satisfying celebration of a life
Review: CORELLI'S MANDOLIN is a bewitching novel, which should, by all rights, endure as a classic. Content as I usually am with relatively trashy popular fiction, I don't know that I can write a review that'll do this volume the honor it merits. This is the life story of Pelagia, a Greek woman living on the (actual) island of Cephallonia off Greece's western coast. The narrative begins at her age of 17, and continues for about fifty-three years. Eighty percent of the storyline takes place immediately before and during the Italian-German occupation of the island during the Second World War. The plot is a tapestry of human existence, woven with its diverse threads: absurdity, tragedy, love, betrayal, loyalty, madness, cruelty, fear, courage, resilience, selflessness, loss, revenge, hatred, and comedy. And because the Grecian theater of the wider conflict is so central to the story, the author doesn't abstain from including its history, foolishness, heroics, and horrific brutalities. CORELLI'S MANDOLIN is filled with a wealth of memorable characters, all created with transcendent skill by the author, Louis de Bernières. Besides Pelagia, there's her wise father, Iannis, a self-taught physician and an amateur historian. There are the other Greek villagers of note: the indomitable Drosoula, the mischievous Lemoni, the priest Arsenios, and the giant (in strength and spirit) Velisarios. And, then there's Pelagia's "funny kind of cat", the engaging Psipsina, a pet pine marten. Above all are the two young men who love Pelagia - Mandras, a neighbor ultimately debased and coarsened by the war, and Corelli of the occupying Italian Army, who is ennobled. Captain Antonio Correlli of the Acqui Division, and his mandolin. The essence of the tale is Pelagia's determined survival in the face of every cruel misfortune, grievous loss, and emotional hit delivered upon her over the years. For example, the death of her father: "I remember when Velisarios set (my father's body) down and I knelt beside him, blind and drunk with tears, and I cradled his bloodied head in my hands and saw that his eyes were empty. His old eyes, looking not on me but on the hidden world beyond. And I thought then for the first time how small and frail he was, how beaten and betrayed, and I realized that without his soul he was so light and thin that even I could lift him. And I raised up his body and clasped his head in my breast, and a great cry came out that must have been mine, and I saw clearly as one sees a mountain that he was the only man I've loved who loved me to the end, and never bruised my heart, and never for a single moment failed me." De Bernières has crafted this epic with insight, inventiveness, compassion, an eye for detail, gentle humor, moral outrage, and intelligence. The reader's heart goes out to Kyria Pelagia, and, at the book's conclusion, is uplifted as Fortune, or a merciful God, extends to the old woman a well-earned and overdue benevolence. You will likely not read a better work of fiction in your lifetime.
Rating:
Summary: Yiassou, Captain Corelli
Review: This is a significant book. I knew nothing about this book when I picked it up. It caught my attention because it was set in Greece (I am a Greek-American), and because it of the reference to a mandolin (my father's and grandfather's instrument). The first 50 pages I thought were so-so; story lines that seemed fragmented and disconnected. Then -- wham -- I (finally) saw how they were connected, and I couldn't put it down. It conveys the essence of the Greek islands, and I was glad that the reviewer from Argostoli thought that the author was accurate in his depiction of Cephallonia. The complexity of the relationships; the struggles of the islanders as they faced invasion, civil war, natural disaster--all affected me deeply. I think that, at times, De Bernieres' use of difficult, obscure language was unnecessary. Although I'm an avid reader, I needed to consult a dictionary for some of the word choices. I also wondered whether non-Greek-speaking readers were bothered by the liberal inclusion of Greek words without translation. The ending was a bit of a letdown, but given the enormity of the story, I'm not sure that there was any better way to wrap it up. My only real regret is that the movie is coming out so soon. I'm sure that it will be a letdown, as I can't conceive of how the essence of this great book will be captured in a ~2 hour film, and I'm concerned that the book will therefore be dismissed, because of a mediocre movie.
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