Rating: 
Summary: Brilliantly written
Review: Corelli's Mandolin was one of the best written books I've ever read. However, I did have to resort to my unabridged dictionary on many an occasion. Does anyone have an EXACT definition for "andarte"? It wasn't in my unabridged. Anyway, I was sorry to have the book end. It was quite a wonderful read!
Rating:
Summary: nobody doesn't like it
Review: It seems almost pointless to write another review of this book which has been recommended and counter-recommended so often that it has almost become an after-dinner game to guess who will bring it up first. It is the only book my father and my mother both loved, the first book since Enid Blyton I have read twice, and wanted to read again and the only book that has ever made my macho housemate cry out aloud. Read it and weep (in a comforting, humanitarian way)
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best novel I've ever read
Review: Human life's best and worst possibilities are here -- in love and war -- and incredibly, love wins out by the end of this novel. At one point two characters are described as "filled with light" -- and when I finished the book, so was I. The book filled me with light, like a hologram etched into my brain, which shimmered there for about three days after I finished it. Love shone in so many particulars -- people, places, animals, dialogues, gestures, and moments -- page by page, I felt a sense of love accumulate, permeate further than I'm accustomed to, and melt some hardened or cold assumptions about the world. I'm left wondering though, must war be the setting in which love can best be revealed? In Corelli's Mandolin, the love story wouldn't exist without the war story -- and de Bernieres telling of the war story, humanizing the soldiers and sparing us not a whiff of the grisliness is another remarkable achievement of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much narrative
Review: I found this book to be slow in the beginning. I was unmoved by Dr. Iannis, Pelagia, Mandras and even the drunken, gluttonous priest. I found the prose relied too much on narrative and not enough on lyrical, evocative description - the old "telling not showing" problem. I found the characters flat and/or a little too precious, with the sole exception of 'l'omosessuale' whose emotions were more dramatically described and who was thus a more compelling character.. Once past the middle of the book, I did feel interest in and affection for the characters, and was impatient to know their destinies. The reliance on narrative was actually very powerful in one chapter near the end - the chapter which the author described the communist infestation of the island (if I recall) - with Dr. Iannis taken away, Pelagia beaten in her own home, and other atrocities. The sheer lack of description drove home the bleakness of these events. Finally, I resented the fact that strong, heroic Carlo's experiences with love were restricted to secret infatuation with heterosexual men and to defending these men with his life. Although he was presented as a good and sympathetic character by the author, it would have been nice if the author had extended his affection for Carlo by allowing him to have a love of his own. Yet perhaps this secrecy was typical of homosexuals in the forties, especially in Mediterranean countries. Actually, the book was quite accurate in its emphasis on and philosophical acceptance of the duality of life - of life's inherent joy and sadness. It is a good book.
Rating:
Summary: This is a wonderful, multilayered novel
Review: On the surface this book is a love story set against the backdrop of World War II. A lovely, strong women on a small Greek island falls in love with a soldier from the occupying Italian army. The story unfolds from several points of view and covers a period from the war to post-war modern Greece. On another level, this book is about war. It is about how quickly a soldier's view of war as a glamorous adventure changes with the brutallity of the conditions they meet. The soldiers on both sides deal with starvation, frigid winters and the deaths of friends in combat. We also see the occupation of Greece continuing from Italian to communists - with little change between the oppressors. The book is very well written. The use of English and descriptive phrases paint a picture of a hardy peasant people on a small island (where the women are always beautiful) caught in the ugliness of war. You will be captivated by the cast of characters as well, from the mandolin playing, opera singing Correli to the young woman following in the footsteps of her doctor father. I highly recommend!
Rating:
Summary: A really really really good book.........
Review: Captain Corelli's Mandolin reminds me of one of those books I read when I was a little girl, curled up in front of my parents' fireplace with my mind a million miles away in another time and place, and everything everywhere happy. This book is so satisfying it can actually make you gain weight. If you liked "Possession" -- this is better. If you liked "Snow Falling on Cedars"-- this is better. "Corelli's Mandolin" hosts a cast of characters which begin to live beyond the printed page... Pelagia, Dr. Iannis, Lemoni, Mandras, and, of course, Cpt. Corelli- who doesn't even enter the tale until something like page 100. By the time I bid a reluctant goodbye to them, I'd already decided to read the book again. Not enough can ever be said about a really good book. This is a really really really good book. Enough said.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Gem!
Review: A witty, irreverent, and moving chronicle of the entertwining lives of its characters, Corelli's Mandolin is simply charming! Louis de Bernieres has created characters of such depth that you cannot help to care about them. They will make you sad and make you laugh all within the space of a paragraph. As I read during my morning commute to work, I found myself bursting into bouts of laughter, much to the bewilderment of my fellow metro passengers! Novels such as this are rare and a delightful treat when discovered. If you enjoy writing that has soul and spirit, you must read this book!
Rating:
Summary: De Bernieres writes prose ecstatically...
Review: Nikos Kazantzakis would be proud of this work. A historical novel, resplendent with wit and amazing powers of historical observation. The thoughts and imagery this work evokes are musical, joyous, heartbreaking, and, above all, wise. I was hitherto oblivious of this writer's work, let alone his existence, but I am glad to have made acquaintance of such novel, literary authorship through this tantalizing work. Louis De Bernieres deals with fundamental issues of human existence, striving to extend the boundaries of historicity and thought and concluding that in the face of so much that is inexplicable there may just be such a thing as moral truth afterall. De Bernieres is graceful and his art exceedingly satsifying; the reader becomes ensphinxed between history and fiction, belief and fanatacisim, humor and trepidation. Do yourselves a favor, my friends, and read and reread Corelli's Mandolin. A book as this is as rare as a blue moon undulating upon Ionian seas
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: Some books are problematic for airplane reading. Take ones that make you laugh out
loud. Though at first you might get benign looks from your neighbors, smiles eventually
turn to annoyance if you keep chuckling and snorting through the flight. Books that make
you cry are a problem, too. Sympathy from flight attendants who think you're on your way
to a funeral doesn't make up for the fact that you'll arrive at your destination drained, with
bloodshot eyes and a stuffy head. Captain Corelli's Mandolin is double trouble, because it
will have you alternately laughing out loud and weeping. It will also have you shaking your
head with wonder -- that one book could be so extraordinarily good.
The book is set on the Ionian Greek island of Cephallonia. The early parts (written
in De Bernieres' characteristic fashion of a series of short vignettes) introduce us to the
villagers and their peaceable life. There's quirky Dr. Iannis and his daughter, Pelagia; her
handsome fisherman fianc‚ Mandras (who later becomes a communist guerrilla); the little
girl Lemoni; drunken, venial Father Arsenios who can be seen to "waddle portentously"
through the town center, and so many others. In Dr. Iannis' yard (where he "nitrogenates",
i.e., urinates on, selected herbs in strict rotation, much to Pelagia's annoyance) we have the
tame pine marten, Psipsina, and the impish goat who eats pages of the "History of
Cephallonia" the doctor is writing. (The successive versions of the "History" which the
doctor writes and then balls up in frustration are some of the most delightful lines of the
book, e.g., "The half-forgotten island of Cephallonia rises improvidently and inadvisedly
from the Ionian Sea; it is an island so immense in antiquity that the very rocks themselves
exhale nostalgia and the red earth lies stupefied not only by the sun, but by the impossible
weight of memory.")
This dreamy life collides with the Italian army, which arrives to occupy the island in
the spring of 1941. (In fact much of the book is historically accurate, from the tour-de-force
chapter in Mussolini's voice -- which some readers find difficult to get through -- to the
Italian occupation, the arrival of the Germans, the massacres of the Italian soldiers, and the
earthquake of 1953.)
The Captain is one of the invaders, but he is so breathtakingly human (both in his
erudition and artistry) that the local citizens find it difficult to continue to view him as the
enemy. Corelli's situation causes him, and the villagers, and us, discomfort because he is
so carefully portrayed as someone at the mercy of a situation greater than himself. "On a
bright morning early in the occupation, Captain Antonio Corelli woke up feeling guilty as
usual. It was an emotion that struck him each morning and left the taste of rancid butter in
his mouth, and it was caused by the knowledge that he was sleeping in somebody else's
bed." Once he is quartered in the doctor's house and becomes an inevitable and inextricable
part of their lives, love blooms between him and Pelagia. In the end even the doctor, despite
his every effort to the contrary, finds himself torn between how he should feel and how he
does feel, toward this Italian invader.
There is love elsewhere in the book. Carlo, a giant of a man, is "l'omosessuale,"
who embodies the finest soldierly virtues of heroism and loyalty. First he secretly loved
Francesco, and later he loves our Captain. The scene in which he meets Francesco's mother
to tell her how Francesco died (he protects her with uplifting images, but then tells us the
bitter horrifying truth) is heartbreaking.
"'When did he die, Signor? Was it a good day?'
'He died on a fine day, Signora, with the sun shining and the birds singing.'
(He died on a day when the snow was melting and when, from beneath that carapace, there were emerging a thousand broken corpses, knapsacks, rusted rifles, water-bottles, illegible unfinished letters drenched in blood...)"
There is much else to the story, but I'll leave it for you to enjoy. I'll just say this: As the book continues past the end of the war, the fact that the plot becomes a bit improbable
doesn't detract from its power and from the depth of the characters. By the end we know them each intimately. We've cried, we've laughed. It's a great read. And you've been
forewarned: Read it in private.
Rating:
Summary: Dazzling
Review: A wonderful book, as charming as you're likely to find. Simply put, it's everything you'd want in an epic novel. It covers the entire spectrum of human existence. Read it, and you'll press it into the palm of a friend and demand that they, too, read it
|
