Corelli's Mandolin

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Summary: War is absurd, Human nature is complex. You'll laugh and cry
Review: DeBernieres cuts to the heart of human nature and the essence of war,religion, and love with his unique, richly drawn characters and their almost-surreal experinces.A masterful use of the English language pulls the reader in and never lets him go. A story set during WWI that feels as if it could have been played out in an ancient Greek amphitheater hundreds of years ago. The tragi-comic themes are timeless. If you are Greek or Italian and value your ethnic heritage, this book will strike a million wonderfully familiar chords. If you are neither you will still have an epic literary experience.

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Summary: If you're looking for a good time . . .
Review: This is the kind of book that you just want to lay down in bed with and make love to all night long, even if its characters rarely, if ever, get the chance to do so. It is the type of novel that glues you to your pillow and keeps you reading until the sun comes up because it has such a wide range of characters that, either you spend half the time wishing that your favorite one would re-appear, or you revel in the variety of the people presented in the novel. Some of these characters may be archetypes, the girl waiting for her loved one to return from the war, the boy gone wrong because of the difficulties of life, the father who is forced to raise his daughter on his own against the odds, but the book also presents new types of characters and situations like the gay soldier who finds courage and solace in the unspoken love he feels towards first one lover who is killed, and then towards the brilliant Captain Corelli whose character is not at all the most deeply explored. I cried for Pelagia and for all the characters, but I did so only after reading this novel non-stop, in two sittings! Have a good read!

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Summary: The best book I read in 1997!
Review: It will make you laugh out loud within the first five pages. I will also get you a little misty-eyed. My recommendation to anyone who hasn't read this book: buy it and enjoy a truly great work - but get out your dictionary because this guy has a vocabulary!!

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Summary: Amazing!
Review: Please, please, please take the time to get into this book. The begining is slow, but like in a Hardy novel, everything you learn is crucial for the rest of the story. Each character becomes so real that to finish the book is loose good friends. This is one of the best books I have ever read.

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Summary: My head hurts from crying!!
Review: I read this book after a couple of friends raved about it. It took me a few pages then I was trapped in the intricate interwoven story. I read the last part of the book one Saturday morning lying in bed. I cried and cried and cried. It was just so sad. My head pounded and I felt that a great tragedy had touched my life. I now want to vist Cephalonia and smell the Rosemary.

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Summary: For the book and the people, WWII's end is a bad thing
Review: The introductory chapters are overwhemingly poetic. And the bulk of the novel, until the Italian surrender, is wonderful--working at all the levels needed to tell the story of the lovers, the friends, the country, and the war. Unfortunately, when the Italians are about to be given up to the Germans, Des Bernieres makes a radical shift in storytelling style whose austerity fails to accomplish what De Bernieres might have intended. The writing (and perhaps also, this reader) are not up to the challenge. And sadly, the concluding ~80 pages take yet another wrong turn. While they may have been an acceptable construction if presented by themselves, the painful lack of consonance with the first three-quarters of the book make them a dissatisfying read. The book is nonetheless a gorgeous and recommended read, but the glory is in the beginning and the middle, not the end.

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Summary: Tragedy, comedy and wisdom, all rolled into one
Review: I didn't know de Bernieres, but I found this book amazing. It took me awhile to discern where he was going at the beginning, but about 3 chapters in, I was enthralled at the eclectic mix of comedy, tragedy, wisdom and love story all rolled into one. It's also excellent that this book has some basis in historical fact. All in all, a story that left me with long moments of belly-churning laughter and a lot to think about. I would recommend it to anyone.

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Summary: A more richly coloured novel would be hard to imagine.
Review: The art of telling a story is not dead, and in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" Louis de Bernieres has written a life-enhancing novel. The tale is set on the Greek island of Cephallonia, mainly during the second world war though it spans decades.A magical sense of place is conjured up in the first few pages, and the spell is not broken from beginning to end. A story is spun of love, the love one woman has for Captain Corelli, but it is also the story of the war that brings him there. For some the war corrupts the fruit of their passion and poisons the well of their ideals, yet at the same time others can imprint their personalities on the very process of war itself, keep their sanity amidst it all, and emerge from the abyss. The atrocities, and there are many of them, are described in matter-of-fact language, each word, each description placed deliberately and chillingly on the page. These pages are the author's finest, the power of the precisely chosen word making the skin go cold and the imagination shiver. But amidst it all there is compassion, humour, and above all a deep understanding of the nature of love and loss. It is a superbly wrought novel and I defy anyone not to fall in love with its cast of characters. It will make you chuckle and it will bring tears to your eyes, and it is a tale that with any luck you will never forget.

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Summary: 98% wonderful
Review: I completely loved this book, even enough to persevere when it got really depressing. I read the last 150 pages in one three-hour, eight-Kleenex gulp. However, I admit that, although I was enjoying the beauty of the language etc. etc., I was also desperate to find out how it was going to end. When I finally did reach the end , I could not help feeling a little cheated -- I had expected to be very sad, but for the first time in the story I was also aware of being manipulated by the author. It doesn't change the fact that I loved the book, but it did leave me feeling a little resentful. Still, I would recommend it. The heartwarming human relationships, thought-provoking history, and slapstick comedy of the other 98% are still worth it.

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Summary: A gentle enemy
Review: This book touched nerves in my spine that I didn't know I had. De Bernieres, with the Englishman's flair for fine understatement and an eye for the good in everyone, paints by turns warm, lyrical, discordant, horrific pictures of an island at war with an unwilling enemy and ill at ease with itself. Gallantry and heroism, idiocy and cruelty ring out from the ranks, whatever colour the uniform, and when love comes in these complex times, it comes in an impossible guise: the love of prisoner for captor. The ancient pride of European culture suffuses this work - militarism, colonialism, art, beauty, learning. It is at times a difficult past to face, but De Bernieres confronts it with insight and dignity.