Reflections on a Marine Venus: A Companion to the Landscape of Rhodes

by Lawrence Durrell

In his hugely popular Prospero's Cell, Lawrence Durrell brought Corfu to life, attracting tens of thousands of visitors to the island. With Reflections on a Marine Venus, he turns to Rhodes: ranging over its past and present, touching with wit and insights on the history and myth which the landscape embodies, and presenting some real and some imagined. With the same wit, tenderness and poetic insight that characterized Prospero's Cell, Reflections on a Marine Venus is an excellent introduction the Eastern Mediterranean.

'How pleasant . . . to meet Mr Durrell, gloating over his enjoyment of a Greek island! . . . He excites a longing to leave for Rhodes at once.' Raymond Mortimer

Genres: Travel, Greece, Nonfiction, Literature, History, Autobiography, Memoir

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Lawrence George Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for The Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. A passionate and dedicated writer from an early age, Durrell’s prolific career also included the groundbreaking Avignon Quintet, whose first novel, Monsieur (1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and whose third novel, Constance (1982), was nominated for the Booker Prize. He also penned the celebrated travel memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize. Durrell corresponded with author Henry Miller for forty-five years, and Miller influenced much of his early work, including a provocative and controversial novel, The Black Book (1938). Durrell died in France in 1990.

The time Lawrence spent with his family, mother Louisa, siblings Leslie, Margaret Durrell, and Gerald Durrell, on the island of Corfu were the subject of Gerald's memoirs and have been filmed numerous times for TV.

Reviews

[Curt Hopkins Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

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?

[Hanneleele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kas pole mitte imetlusväärne, kuidas vanasti sai kirjutada mida iganes ilma, et sel oleks läbi mõeldud süžee, algus, lõpp, mingigi ülesehitus (ausõna, isegi reisiraamatutel on enamasti need komponendid olemas!), isegi mitte läbivat žanrit (see on mingi segu seitse), ja see avaldati ikka ja sai isegi mõõdukalt tuntuks?

See raamat sobib täiuslikult puhkusesse, sest on selline segu igavusest, hakkab-juba-looma tundest, tahaks-ise-ka-kreekasse tundest, tundest, mille ristiksin "häh, mehed" (või võib-olla "häh, joodikud"), natuke on huvitav, siis jälle paneb silmi pööritama, et võib-olla kui te kõik kogu aeg veini ei kaaniks, oleks millestki päriselt kirjutada. Kõige olulisem siinkohal see mõõdukas igavus, liiga põnevaid raamatuid mulle ei meeldi rannas lugeda, võib ära kõrbeda, ei saa suva koha pealt pooleli jätta, aga surmigav on jälle liiga igav, et üldse lugeda vääriks. Mõõdukas igavus on just see!

Raamat on igatahes segu mälestustest (selline memuaari vaib), reisijuhist, pajatustest stiilis "semu luges kusagilt ja üks sell kõrtsis rääkis sama juttu, järelikult on üsna hea žanss, et see on tõsi"... Tõsiasi, et autor saadeti 1945 Rhodosele, et ta teeks nii, et seal ilmuks kolmes keeles ajaleht, mille tarvis olid kindluse keldris hoiul trükipressid ja paar selli, kes tina oskasid laduda, ning kusagilt saadeti 30 töölist, on intrigeeriv (selgub, et ajalehed on küll rohkem hinnas selleks, et oleks, mille sisse kala ja saia pakendada, kui et neid lugeda, aga käsk on käsk ja ajaleht ikkagi oluline osa tsivilisatsiooni tööriistakastis). Huvitav ja jube on ka kogu sõjajärgne aeg, mille tagajärgedest Kreekas ma pmst midagi ei teadnud, et saared olid kõik käinud sakslaste ja itaallaste ja siis inglaste kätte, üleni miine täis jne. Paraku ajalehetööst Lawrence suurt midagi ei räägi, mainib möödaminnes, et kella üheks saab enamasti leht kokku ja saab semudega jooma ja filosofeerima hakata. Ilus põli! Naine vahepeal on ka kusagil ilus, ta ei öelnud kogu raamatu jooksul vist pea midagi. Kusjuures iseenesest on joomise ja filosofeerimise jutud kõige põnevamad ja lustakamad kogu raamatus, see inglise, kreeka jt fruktide jõuk, kes kokku on kogunenud, pakub tõesti kirjanduslikku ainest, ent iga kord, kui asi nagu looma hakkab, tundub autor tundvat vastupandamatut vajadust mingisugusse pajatuste sohu vajuda ja jutustada ümber kõik kõlakad, mida ta mingi mälestise kohta kuulnud on. Nii et ikka väga seinast seina, kuigi omal kombel nauditav, kui oma süda tüütusele avada.

[John Ratliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering that I am a long time devotee of Lawrence Durrell, the great word painter of the English-speaking world, I found this little book to be another masterpiece. I have always found it curious that Durrell seems to be a fountain of such obscure knowledge of obscure places in obscure times. How does he do it? Even after reading a couple his biographies I still don't know the answer to that. I may never be able to figure out how he gained such erudition.

As complex as his novels are, his travel writings seem disarmingly straightforward at first, but their depth steals unnoticed into one's consciousness until the brain is suddenly saturated with imagery, offering twists of irony and humor, yet implanting an intimacy with his amusing friends and characters, real or not. And, here again we have a revealing glimpse of his crib notes in two appendices: Calendar of Flowers and Saints and Peasant Remedies.

The words seem to flow from his pen with the greatest of ease, and they dance the fantastic in one's mind long after the book is set aside. And, somewhere on this path one realizes to be in the presence of a giant. Even a simple sojourn of travel or a daily sortie wends along with a subtlety that sneaks up on you. If you know nothing about the Greek island of Rhodes, and if you can't hold it's quirky history in your brain for long, at least you will come away with a load of mental images of it that will last a lifetime.

And, then, how does an old and fumbling brain retain memories of distant places past and old friends never again seen, or a once upon a time lover? How many times is our memory haunted with images from another time and place, but where we cannot quite bring these poignant murmurs into noetic focus, much less refresh them in words on paper?

Well, this Epilogue to his "Reflections on a Marine Venus" will humble anyone who tries to better it (the Sporades are Greek islands in the Aegean Sea next modern Turkey).

........."The Sporades are lean wolves and hunt in packs; waterless, eroded by the sun. They branch off every side as you coast along the shores of Anatolia. Then towards afternoon the shaggy green of Cos comes up; and then, slithering out of the wintry blue the moist green flanks of Rhodes.

It's good to see places where one has been happy in the past---to see them after many years and in different circumstances. The child is asleep in its rugs: that long, much-loved, much traveled coastline breasts its way up against the liner's deck until the town fans out---each minaret like the loved worn face of an earthly friend. I am looking, as if into a well, to recapture the faces of Hoyle, Gideon, Mills---and the dark vehement grace of E.

Ahead of us the night gathers, a different night, and Rhodes begin to fall into the unresponding sea from which only a memory can rescue it. The clouds hang high over Anatolia. Other Islands? Other futures? Not, I think, after one has lived with the Marine Venus. The wound she gives one must carry to the world's end."......

[samhucko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sympatická kniha o živote na ostrove Rhodos z pera Lawrenca Durrella, ktorý tam pôsobil ako kultúrny atašé počas britskej vojenskej správy po WW2.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so this armchair traveller gives Lawrence Durrell 5 stars.

There are two sides to this response, I think. One is romantic: 'Reflections on a Marine Venus' is largely an idyllic portrait of a post-war Rhodes, evoking, for me, a place where the world seems to work for the best even though it clearly isn't Panglossian. The other is mnemonical: during my mid-teens, my parents lived in Turkey, and summer holidays include expeditions to Ephesus, Pammukale, Troy, Gordium, Cappadocia and, most strikingly for me, Alahan. Add to this, a holiday in Greece shortly after I was married and some experience of the Algarve. These recollections of sunbaked rock, pines, cicadas, olives, fish, and the ancient landscapes of past civilisations are ones I return to again and again.

And these are memories that Durrell both revives and, though vicariously, augments.

I find his prose sensual. Often, I can't follow excatly what he's trying to evoke or recall, but I don't think, on this occasion, that matters because, for me, he's coaxing the ineffable into effability, and it is enough for me to get a glimpse of the importance and beauty of the moment he's recalling.

I like the episodic nature of the book. Sometimes, the narrative consists of mere snippets, sometimes it's a fullblown narrative as in 'The Saint of Soroni'. Durrell covers island characters, island history, island life, archaeology, friendship, learning, politics. His depiction of his particular friends - Gideon, Hoyle, Mills - is lucid and affectionate, and his description of the 'Marine Venus' captured for me everything that I feel about the classical and Mediterranean world of my limited experience.

This is a travel book which memorialises the phrase 'the time of my life'. Durrell seems to have been blessed by at least two of these: I read 'Prospero's Cell' with the same pleasure that 'Recollections' gives me and that Gerald Durrell's 'My Family and Other Animals' does. If I can't pin down my own 'time of my life', then I'm, pathetically, happy to borrow any of these.

[Eddie Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Alexandrian Quartet was easily my favourite book as a teenager; rereading it many years later I was disappointingly repelled by its ornate prose and languorous atmosphere, so I approached this book with some trepidation. Have to say, I enjoyed it very much. Durrell's beautiful poetic language is deployed with disciplined discretion. Writing about his relatively short stay on the island of Rhodes in the immediate aftermath of WWII, he subtly uses the shock of recovery from the cataclysm of war to illuminate Rhodes's distinguished Classical Greek and Crusader history of war and invasion. Indeed, the famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was the memorial to a failed conquest. Ultimately Durrell's book itself becomes a subtle, beautiful and moving memorial to those smaller souls who die in the service of creating civilisation.

My grandfather was an officer in the RAF and his family was deployed in the Mediterranean and Egypt during the war - I grew up on my father's tales of war terrors and dislocations mixed with his enjoyment of Mediterranean sun and sea; while Durrell writes from a different perspective I enjoyed the parallels between the two experiences.

[Mae Lender · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mina, vana islomaan, loomulikult nautisin seda raamatut :) Vana hea Larry. Ja tõlge oli ka juba oluliselt parem kui triloogia esimesel raamatul ("Küprose kibedad sidrunid"). Väga hea tasakaal argiste ja ajalooliste kirjelduste vahel. Maiuspalaks need autorile nii omased pisikesed vimkalikud torked, mida vaid briti härrasmeeste seltskonnas juhtuda võib.

Loomulikult tahaks kohe Rhodosele lennata, aga ma annan endale aru, et seda endist Rhodost ma enam eest ei leiaks. Nagu enamikke toredaid kohti. Nii et lepin 1945. aasta piltide ja oludega (kuigi sõjajärgses kaoses, ent siiski omamoodi võluvaga).

Eriti hea on lõpulisa "Rhodose lillede ja pühakute lühikalender", see on midagi sellist, millest reisidel sageli puudust tunnen. Ma ei vaja ju tervet taimeentsüklopeediat, ent alati on mingid võõrad liigid, mida teatud ajaperioodil leidub konkreetsel maal keskmisest rohkem ja mida tahaks enda jaoks määratleda.
Tegelikult on üks lisa veel, rahvameditsiini oma. Ma ei mäleta, kas seal või oli see juba eelpool teksti sees, aga kõige enam jäi mulle meelde verejooksu peatamiseks ämblikuvõrgu kasutamine. Oli see nali või päriselt toimiks... ei tea. Kui mul oleks ämblikutega paremad suhted, siis katsetaks järgmisel korral, aga noh...

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book recounts the author's experiences as a press officer for the British government on the island of Rhodes shortly after World War II. The tone is humorous, and there are cheerful portrayals of a motley group of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. The island is lovingly portrayed in sometimes dreamy sentences. Durrell considered himself an "islomane" - a lover of islands, and his appreciation for the natural beauty, historic treasures, and simple people of the region is evident. There are a couple of trips to old monasteries, a short journey to other islands, and comical encounters with locals.

What is most notable about Durrell is his flowery, overworked prose style. I came across numerous words I had not seen before, and he often seems to try to write in a deliberately, and perhaps unnecessarily complex manner. I do not mean to suggest that his writing is not a success. Durrell's works contain moments of true poetic grace and unique phrasing - no one could accuse him of being a pedestrian wielder of the English language. And this introduction to Rhodes certainly gives one a good sense of the place (at least how it was circa 1950.)

[anđela]

Lepo je Bebi Dol rekla da Darel piše kao da slika.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saartel ON tõmmet.
Lugesin nüüd läbi viimase raamatu Lawrence Durrelli saartetriloogiast, mis jutustab värvika ja lõhnava loo elust -olust Teise maailmasõja järgsel Rhodose saarel. Tema varasemalt eesti keeles ilmund raamatud Korfust ja Küprosest jätsid lugedes sama päikselise ja (Vahe)merelise tunde.
Meisterlikult vaatleb ta saareelu, nii inimesi kui loodust ja elab kaasa oma kaasmaalaste seiklustele saareellu sissealamisel. Kohati eksleb ta saare ajaloos ja müütides ning leiab sealt lugeja jaoks esile tuua põnevad seik(l)u(si).
Üks huvitav seik veel: püüdsin aimata neid põnevaid lõhnu, mis Rhodose saarel siis hõljusid, autor mainib seal mitmeid kordi osmanthust, mille lõhna ma ei suutnud endale kuidagi ette kujutada. Siis jõudis minuni neil päevil maagilisel viisil üks lõhnasegu, mis just sisaldaski osmanthust....... Oh seda üllatust, Rhodose hurmavad lõhnad otse koduseinte vahel! Olen siiralt tänulik selle suure juhuse üle!
Sellest raamatust sain ka endale diagnoosi ( no mingi diagnoos peab ju igal inimesel olema, eriti praegusel ajal) islomaania: "Pelk teadmine, et nad on saarel, väikeses merega ümbritsetud maailmas, viib nad kirjeldamatusse joovastusse. Need ehtsad islomaanid... põlvnevad otse Atlantise elanikest ja saarel elades igatseb nende alateadvus taga kadunud Atlantist.

Raamat on kindlasti heaks sissejuhatus kirjaniku Aleksandria kvarteti viimasele osale Clea, mida asun nüüd põnevusega järgmiseks lugema.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A re-read for me after my first visit to Rhodes last month. I had read this years ago, but after having spent a week exploring the island, I knew I had to revisit this book and see what Durrell made of it. I still love his travel writing and his clear affection for the island and its inhabitants makes this charming. Arriving from Egypt, straight after the end of WWII, he is charged with creating a newspaper for the islanders, which he duly does. Renting a house in the old town, he records snapshots of the two years he spent there and the real sadness he feels when it is time to move on. I'd say it's a must read if you want to read about the history of Rhodes. He visits a lot of the places I did and it is so interesting to think about what has changed in the intervening decades, and of course, what has stayed the same.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frustratingly, contains most of the elements that made Bitter lemons such a wonderful read, but scrambled and incoherent without a main plotline to pull you along. There are local characters, some politics, adventure, but seems more like something that happened a long time ago and he is now trying to remember.

[Gary Reger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence Durrell spent World War II in Cairo and Alexandria, working for the British government. In May, 1945, right after the German surrender, he was seconded to the Greek island of Rhodes, where he served as information officer. Rhodes and the rest of the Dodecanese islands had been assigned to the Italians after WWI; during the later war, after Italy surrendered, German troops occupied them. When Durrell arrived both Italians and captured Germans were still present, and the final disposition of the islands after the conflict yet to be determined. It was in this ambivalent, unsettled atmosphere that Durrell spent about a year, along with Eve, the woman he'd met in Alexandria and had abandoned his first wife Nancy for. (His divorce from Nancy did not consummate till 1947, so he and Eve were technically "living in sin." Apparently the British administration turned a blind eye. Durrell himself tries to elide the facts by placing her in a "hotel", which would seem simply not to be true.)

Durrell had lived for several years before the war on Corfu, about which he wrote in the lyrical Prospero's Cell (a book that also partly fictionalizes his time there, almost entirely erasing Nancy and reworking events). Rhodes post-war is no idyll. The harbor is clogged with smashed ships and mines; ruined gun emplacements litter the landscape; the Rhodians, impoverished and desperate, sell their possessions for food; unmarked mine-fields render country walks hazardous (Gideon, one of Durrell's friends, is killed later when he steps on a mine on the nearby island of Nisyros); bombed-out buildings mar the Rhodian cityscape. But we hear about this only obliquely, here and there, for Durrell's main goal is to recapture the brilliance and fairy-tale atmosphere of his time on Corfu. He lives in a little house next door to the Muslim cemetery (another elision: the absence of the Islamic population that had been expelled after the Greek-Turkish War) bedizened with bougainvillea and adorned with a little garden and a table built around a massive old tree. He takes us to a festival in a small village in honor of the local saint, marred by a terrible accident in which a young boy is almost killed. We learn the history of the siege by Demetrios in 305 BCE and the later capture of the island by the Knights Hospitaller, consummated only after machinations to take the place failed, both events mined out of the library accumulated by the Italian archaeologists who'd worked there in the interwar period. (Durrell thanks in his Acknowledgements "Professor G. Morriconi," director of the Italian institute, who must have still been in residence post-war; the curious reader can find lots of fascinating material in the periodicals the archaeologists curated, especially the early volumes of the Annuario, which include long and fascinating surveys of the mediaeval remains on the islands.)

But even though Durrell christened the first chapter "Of Paradise Terrestre," he could not completely disguise his own disappointment at finding the Greece of his past gone, gauzy though memory had rendered it. The prose, as usual with Durrell, is rich and absorbing, rife with striking metaphors and unexpected usages. But the beauty of the writing--which, admittedly, verges sometimes into the purple--cannot overcome the realities. They peek out in the occasional aside, and perhaps even more in the fact that, unlike in Prospero's Cell, there are no Rhodians who figure as major characters; all his friends are other adjuncts of the temporary British administration. (Durrell had problems with women, so it is perhaps no surprise that Eve is almost invisible and never granted any development of her personality; only Chloe, the wife of his doctor friend Mills, emerges from the background as almost a rounded person, and that only in the end. Eve was--it is said--the model for Justine in "The Alexandria Quartet"; one is directed there for Durrell's assessment, which isn't terribly complimentary.)

I've read critics who place Reflections at the bottom rank of Durrell's three major island memoirs. Certainly it lacks the quasi-magic of Prospero's Cell and the bitter sadness of Bitter Lemons, written about Cyprus as it descended into a brutal civil war. But the judgment isn't entirely fair. Rhodes did not present either the idyll of Corfu or the horrid scene of a beautiful island about to be ravaged by inter-ethnic violence. In 1945-1946 Rhodes was in suspension, aching with the wounds and aftermath of a brutal war, and in many ways, it seems, a bitter disappointment to Durrell, who seems to have hoped for a reunion with his beloved Corfu. The veil he draws over it was his effort to make Rhodes into as much the image of a Greek island pre-1939 as he could. There is much here to admire, in writing and observation, even though one must read with an eye to that veil, and alert to opportunities to peek behind it. Reflections belongs in a different category than the other two books.

[John Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is in many ways a book end to Durrell's previous book on Corfu, PROSPERO'S CELL. At the end of World War II, Lawrence Durrell is assigned to be and Information Officer for the British Administration in Rhodes, Greece from 1945 to 1947. He captures his life there, along with his work companions; the landscape, people and history of the island. Durrell's writing is exquisite. I was amazed in his last chapter how at a town festival, he described so fully what it was like to be in the crowd at the festival so you felt you were there with him. He captures it very well and one can sense the deep love that he developed for the island. I spent a morning in Rhodes last summer on a cruise and loved running around the medieval city of Rhodes. It certainly has its charms.

[Dick Head · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reflection in the water that I hope hasn't been lost to time. The way the sun warms it, the way in which it shines...Lawrence Durell's manner of writting feels so beautiful and far away from what I know of the present.
Style seems to have bloomed in full inside his heart as an artist (a poet) when he wrote this for it surprises me so tenderly with a way of recounting sensations that I am now dreaming of both having and writting about.

A perfectly beautiful bit of history, told in an incredibly heartful way.
Love permeates all of him, not just in romance, but the world he has found, a small one at that. Just a charming little island in Greece where he's found a true home. A place where to sink one's anchor in the shape of a beautifully wet marble statuette.

[Joshua Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Durrell manages to evoke a sweeping, sepia-tinged portrait of Rhodes, coloured by his flowery, impressionistic prose. Quite like his ode to Cyprus (Bitter Lemons) it communicates his intoxication with Levantine world with a sunny eloquence and perceptive eye.

Written in the civic aftermath of the Second World War, Lawrence refrains from allowing his personal duties as a press officer to interrupt the current of his thought. His contemplations weave through the threads of history, observation and memoir, and betray a burning curiosity and love for the Greek world. Recommended, but Bitter Lemons is a superior example of his 'travel' writing.

[Lee Garratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disjointed and episodic, one wonders why Durrell's editor didn't take a firmer line. The main interest for me was to read of a Rhodes utterly vanished now! To wander Rhodes old town now, it is impossible to imagine a deserted and ruined town where a few starving inhabitants eke out a living. Durrell is always strongest with his descriptive writing and this contains, as one would expect, some passages of real lyrical beauty. But, overall, this is not a cohesive book at all - more an odd collection of memories over a short period of time. Disappointing.

[James Horgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Immediately after the war Durrell is sent to Rhodes to run the local newspaper as part of bringing stability back to a shattered locale.

There are plenty of fun anecdotes, living in a room rented from the Turkish Imam, with festivals roasting meat over huge charcoal pits, and visits to nearby Greek monasteries, this is an enjoyable work.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus is, in my view, the best of his non-fiction works. The other books don't match up to it.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is a book that was probably good in its day, but just has not aged well. It seems to be from an era when snobbery was conflated with wit. There are moments of beauty--the line, "The child is the forfeit we pay for the whole sum of our worldly errors," is particularly memorable. It is interesting as a look at the immediate post-war era.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as part of my morning reading, along with poetry, a couple of pages each sitting. A lifelong fan of Durrell, this book reminded me of why I love his work. Evoking the spirit of place with strong, sensual imagery that forces you to slow down and savor every word.

[Ezekiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good, some dated language, although that's to be expected. The final chapter, The Saint of Soroni, is its best portion. Would've liked more in the way of reflections on that Marine Venus, though.

[Sloane · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few moderately engaging historical set pieces. But this memoir about the British occupation of Rhodes after WWII was about as dry and as imaginative as a 1950s Sunday roast. Needs more sauce.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relato pintoresco de las costumbres de las islas griegas (especialmente de Rodas). Como siempre, Durrell captura el encanto local desde el punto de vista de un extranjero.

[Chiefdonkey Bradey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each sentence rich and tender, bringing the warm sun to a pale garden

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed all of Durrell's island books that I have read. His prose is so good it seems unfair to the other writers.

[Aingeal Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! So descriptive, I felt I was there.

[anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

+5⭐

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The perfect read for my recent holiday to Rhodes. Really enjoyed learning about the island’s post-WW2, Ancient Greek and mythological history written so poetically

[Mark West · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Durrell's Mediterranean island books. Bit of a slog, this one.