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Corfu
House in Gastouri for rent for 2 mths. Occupant travelling. Reasonable rent.
In a village on the island of Corfu, alone in the cottage of a man he's never met, a young Australian actor pieces together the strange life story of the writer whose house he's living in. As he explores his surroundings and makes new friends in Corfu, his own life begins to appear to him like an illuminating shadow-play of his absent hosts.
Set in the physical landscapes of the Greek islands, Adelaide and the suburbs of London, Robert Dessaix's second novel is about friendship, love, the ordinary and extraordinary. Yet at its core is a perfectly placed meditation on literary landscapes—Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov—and the part art can play in making our lives beautiful.
In a village on the island of Corfu, alone in the cottage of a man he's never met, a young Australian actor pieces together the strange life story of the writer whose house he's living in. As he explores his surroundings and makes new friends in Corfu, his own life begins to appear to him like an illuminating shadow-play of his absent hosts.
Set in the physical landscapes of the Greek islands, Adelaide and the suburbs of London, Robert Dessaix's second novel is about friendship, love, the ordinary and extraordinary. Yet at its core is a perfectly placed meditation on literary landscapes—Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov—and the part art can play in making our lives beautiful.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Robert Dessaix
35 books45 followersRobert Dessaix (born 1944), also known as Robert Jones, is an Australian novelist, essayist and journalist. Dessaix is best-known as a writer of literary non-fiction (memoirs, essays, biography and autobiography), but has also published two novels, several short stories and one play.
Born in Sydney in 1944, he was adopted by Tom and Jean Jones, went to Lane Cove Public School, Artarmon Opportunity School (remembered warmly in What Days Are For) and North Sydney Boys High School (1956–60). After a year at Sydney University, he moved to Canberra to major in Russian language and literature, which he had studied privately for the Leaving Certificate while at high school, at the Australian National University. He spent the next 23 years of his life, on and off, in Canberra, studying for his M.A. and Ph.D. both at the ANU and at Moscow University, teaching, writing about Russian literature and also marrying. Eventually he moved to Sydney to teach at the University of NSW. His love of Russian literature informs all his work.
Born in Sydney in 1944, he was adopted by Tom and Jean Jones, went to Lane Cove Public School, Artarmon Opportunity School (remembered warmly in What Days Are For) and North Sydney Boys High School (1956–60). After a year at Sydney University, he moved to Canberra to major in Russian language and literature, which he had studied privately for the Leaving Certificate while at high school, at the Australian National University. He spent the next 23 years of his life, on and off, in Canberra, studying for his M.A. and Ph.D. both at the ANU and at Moscow University, teaching, writing about Russian literature and also marrying. Eventually he moved to Sydney to teach at the University of NSW. His love of Russian literature informs all his work.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
March 26, 2025
In a village on the island of Corfu, alone in the cottage of a man he’s never met, a young Australian actor pieces together the strange life story of the Australian writer whose house he’s living in. As he explores his surroundings and makes new friends, his own life begins to shadow that of his absent host.
Set in the Greek islands, Adelaide and London but not really about any of these places. On the face of it this a novel is about the nature of friendship and love yet there seems little of either in place. There are four separate threads; a love story, a travelogue and a potted history of an obscure author and scattered throughout numerous literary references to writers including Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov – and the way art can affect our lives- and yet none of them ever seem to actually intertwine at any point. I spent much of my time wondering where it would go - in the end, I'm not sure it went anywhere. I felt little interest or empathy for any of the characters and yet I did finish it which has to be a plus point and mean that it had something going for it at least. Personally I found this a generally confusing and unsatisfactory read. I would give it 1.5 if I could.
Set in the Greek islands, Adelaide and London but not really about any of these places. On the face of it this a novel is about the nature of friendship and love yet there seems little of either in place. There are four separate threads; a love story, a travelogue and a potted history of an obscure author and scattered throughout numerous literary references to writers including Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov – and the way art can affect our lives- and yet none of them ever seem to actually intertwine at any point. I spent much of my time wondering where it would go - in the end, I'm not sure it went anywhere. I felt little interest or empathy for any of the characters and yet I did finish it which has to be a plus point and mean that it had something going for it at least. Personally I found this a generally confusing and unsatisfactory read. I would give it 1.5 if I could.
August 21, 2021
An Australian arrives on the Greek island of Corfu. The year is 1987. He’s fled the stillness of Adelaide in search of art, history and adventure. He rents a cottage belonging to a writer he’s never met, and begins to ponder his life and his choices.
There’s a man, William, who he’s been traveling with, abruptly left behind in Rome, theirs a relationship always on the cusp of happening, always sabotaged by insecurity and the elusive nature of intimacy.
There’s a man, Kester, who owns the cottage but is absent for most of the story. The narrator pieces together Kester’s life from his belongings and from the stories he’s left behind in the expat community that languishes in Corfu.
I’m drawn to books in which queer men set out to find a way to live, a way to be, looking for answers in other people’s lives, in art and literature, in exile. The queer man’s reality of not belonging – especially in 1987 – is a constant search for home, “the place where being what he is will matter.”
Written twenty years ago, Robert Dessaix’s novel is a meandering meditation on how some of us form our sense of self, not through by ourselves into life, but through detached observation. The narrator seeks in the lives of others clues as to how he might live his own.
There’s young William and old Kester, forever out of reach. There are the expats on Corfu, in their middle years, “that not uninteresting in-between age when you know at last what it is you want and also know you’ll never have it”. There are the characters of three Chekhov plays in which our narrator performs. There are the Mediterranean writers whose existential interrogations mirror his – Homer, Saphho, Cavafy - and whose work is explored in inspired tangents.
It’s all a little ponderous and serious and self-indulgent, yet erudite and thoughtful and loaded with insights that hit home. Dessaix defines the difficulty of intimacy, the mystery of how we step into the space between the self and the object of our desire. He beautifully describes the meaningful detours we sometimes must embark on to find our way home, lured off the beaten path by art, travel and desire.
There’s a man, William, who he’s been traveling with, abruptly left behind in Rome, theirs a relationship always on the cusp of happening, always sabotaged by insecurity and the elusive nature of intimacy.
There’s a man, Kester, who owns the cottage but is absent for most of the story. The narrator pieces together Kester’s life from his belongings and from the stories he’s left behind in the expat community that languishes in Corfu.
I’m drawn to books in which queer men set out to find a way to live, a way to be, looking for answers in other people’s lives, in art and literature, in exile. The queer man’s reality of not belonging – especially in 1987 – is a constant search for home, “the place where being what he is will matter.”
Written twenty years ago, Robert Dessaix’s novel is a meandering meditation on how some of us form our sense of self, not through by ourselves into life, but through detached observation. The narrator seeks in the lives of others clues as to how he might live his own.
There’s young William and old Kester, forever out of reach. There are the expats on Corfu, in their middle years, “that not uninteresting in-between age when you know at last what it is you want and also know you’ll never have it”. There are the characters of three Chekhov plays in which our narrator performs. There are the Mediterranean writers whose existential interrogations mirror his – Homer, Saphho, Cavafy - and whose work is explored in inspired tangents.
It’s all a little ponderous and serious and self-indulgent, yet erudite and thoughtful and loaded with insights that hit home. Dessaix defines the difficulty of intimacy, the mystery of how we step into the space between the self and the object of our desire. He beautifully describes the meaningful detours we sometimes must embark on to find our way home, lured off the beaten path by art, travel and desire.
July 10, 2021
I’m an Australian but I had never heard of Kester Berwick before reading this novel. And, I must admit, it wasn’t until halfway through until I realised that Berwick was, in fact, a real person. I think there is a potential danger with this book to become fixated on what is truth and what is fiction. How many of the characters are based on real people? Is the narrator really Robert Dessaix? It doesn’t matter; just go along for the ride. After all, it is called Corfu: a Novel, not Corfu: a Memoir. At a time when it is impossible for Australians to travel overseas, this novel completely transported me to the Greek Islands. As with Dessaix’s other novel, Night Letters, it is beautifully written. I took photos of several pages to capture exquisite paragraphs.
August 17, 2021
I had a lot of fun with this book! It was exactly what I wanted right now. At times it seemed to lack focus or direction, but I actually enjoyed that aspect of it. I liked how it was full of other writers and other lives: Kester Berwick, Chekhov, Sappho, the Durrells, Cavafy. Chapter 12 in Part Two was my favorite. A perfect summer escape.
May 18, 2022
I felt like I was reading four separate books. One was the novel, detailing the story of a young South Australian actor and his stay on the Greek island, Corfu, as he tries to work out his life and his relationship with William, who he walked out on in Rome. The second is a travelogue of the Greek islands. The third was a fictionalised(?) biography of little known Australian author, Kester Berwick, who ended up living in Corfu. The fourth was a big collection of literary commentary on Sappho, Cavafry and, most importantly, Chekov.
It's not that these four different strands can’t work well together but that I never quite believed they were working with each other to tell a story. As individual stories, I felt drawn to the first book, not very interested in the second, mildly intrigued by the third and while I can really enjoy literary references and analysis, the authors Dessiax focused were either people I either hadn’t read or hadn’t read much of.
It's not that these four different strands can’t work well together but that I never quite believed they were working with each other to tell a story. As individual stories, I felt drawn to the first book, not very interested in the second, mildly intrigued by the third and while I can really enjoy literary references and analysis, the authors Dessiax focused were either people I either hadn’t read or hadn’t read much of.
August 29, 2024
for our 25th birthdays, my closest friend and I went to corfu. it was late august and with a white-knuckle grip on the last weeks of summer, we stayed in palaiokastritsa, a quiet village in the northwest of the island. before we even knew how to sound out ‘pal-ai-o-kas-trit-sa’ and long before we would be devastated to find out that the nearest speck of nightlife was 2 hours away, one essential decision framed our time together: the next selection for our two-person book club
I craved fiction about the philosophy of travel (NOT from alain de botton) and with the input of the right key words on google, I found robert dessaix’s ‘corfu’. for how on-the-nose it was, I hesitated to whip it out on the beach for fear that it would look like a travel guide that screams ‘tourist!’ in a way that no linen shirt ever could. however, much like a travel guide, ‘corfu’ is about the naked desire to trade places for a manufactured sense of unfamiliarity, to experience a foreignness that reshapes the self
why did we travel for our birthdays? why does anyone? what was the expectation? to dissolve the boundaries of daily life? for the walls to fall away? to create ‘memories’? to have ‘fun’? how dare us!
dessaix interrogates this through a deeply lonely narrator in whose uprooting contains the quiet hope that displacement will lead to something extraordinary. for a book that orbits someone who eludes connection while yearning for it at the same time, what rapt me most was dessaix’s musings of friendship, like that of patroclus and achilles, or daphnis and chloe, or with musings from cicero, horace and emerson. through this, I began mythologising my own time with my friend (ooo friend!), which being in the land of homer’s odyssey makes you wont to do
‘I’d finally cast anchor. Life was a smooth, wax tablet again, waiting to be written on. It was deeply unsettling.’
by this point in a review, I would’ve commented in detail on the plot by now. for instance, it’s 1987 and the narrator, an australian actor, is staying in kester berwick’s home in gastouri, a famous writer, while he is away. but in ‘corfu’, I don’t think it matters... the heart is in what dessaix makes of belonging, love, the ordinary and extraordinary, all of which make for plaster where the story falters or feels all too convenient at times
this isn’t for those seeking a gripping plot anyway, it’s for those willing to meander in the poetic and to sift through its tucked truths. with that and all the self-narrativising I added to it, the wax tablet of my own life was rewritten, however imperceptibly
I craved fiction about the philosophy of travel (NOT from alain de botton) and with the input of the right key words on google, I found robert dessaix’s ‘corfu’. for how on-the-nose it was, I hesitated to whip it out on the beach for fear that it would look like a travel guide that screams ‘tourist!’ in a way that no linen shirt ever could. however, much like a travel guide, ‘corfu’ is about the naked desire to trade places for a manufactured sense of unfamiliarity, to experience a foreignness that reshapes the self
why did we travel for our birthdays? why does anyone? what was the expectation? to dissolve the boundaries of daily life? for the walls to fall away? to create ‘memories’? to have ‘fun’? how dare us!
dessaix interrogates this through a deeply lonely narrator in whose uprooting contains the quiet hope that displacement will lead to something extraordinary. for a book that orbits someone who eludes connection while yearning for it at the same time, what rapt me most was dessaix’s musings of friendship, like that of patroclus and achilles, or daphnis and chloe, or with musings from cicero, horace and emerson. through this, I began mythologising my own time with my friend (ooo friend!), which being in the land of homer’s odyssey makes you wont to do
‘I’d finally cast anchor. Life was a smooth, wax tablet again, waiting to be written on. It was deeply unsettling.’
by this point in a review, I would’ve commented in detail on the plot by now. for instance, it’s 1987 and the narrator, an australian actor, is staying in kester berwick’s home in gastouri, a famous writer, while he is away. but in ‘corfu’, I don’t think it matters... the heart is in what dessaix makes of belonging, love, the ordinary and extraordinary, all of which make for plaster where the story falters or feels all too convenient at times
this isn’t for those seeking a gripping plot anyway, it’s for those willing to meander in the poetic and to sift through its tucked truths. with that and all the self-narrativising I added to it, the wax tablet of my own life was rewritten, however imperceptibly
April 14, 2019
This book has three things that I love: Greece, Australia, and Chekhov. I’m usually skeptical of “mixed genre” works, but Dessaix expertly weaves literary criticism in with a very compelling narrative. And even though the end is foreseeable, the author maintains the dramatic tension and keeps that end in doubt—I really didn’t know which way it was going to go. A very intelligent and mature work.
February 8, 2013
Second time that I have read this novel and I'm still in two minds about it; parts are engaging and great to read, however there are other parts that are turgid and boring and these take away from the good parts. Overall a bit of a disappointment.
January 2, 2014
I realised that the multiple shelves, all interesting, that I was able to place this book on, may well be its UNdoing...for me.
Like making a super cake and admiring ALL the MOST luscious ingredients laid out on the bench. Alas...when combined the Whole does not outshine or do justice to the super ingredients it contains.
I kept reading parts as "real-life" Robert Dessaix travel experiences,all knitted together to make a pseudo novel.
Kester Berwick, Australian, expatriate and author of the novel "The Head of Orpheus Singing",is a real person. I met him in Sydney in late 1978, soon after returning from a year spent teaching in Athens.His novel of 1973 was having its belated Australian Launch in a private Sydney home, and I got an invite and subsequently bought the book, "The Head of...".
Dessaix's novel was an opportunity to find out more about this interesting man...although there seems to be a tendency to call him boring and unsuccessful because he didn't become famous.
The production of Chekhov plays; travels in Greece with a literary slant -the Durrells, Cavafy, Homer and Sappho make varied appearances; the uneasy start-stop-start of a love affair; the history of Kester Berwick; the lives and doings that make up an expatriate community - these are ALL fascinating topics and make for a Rich Read, especially when you have Robert Dessaix aboard as writer.
Finally for me, it never came together as a knitted whole.
I was too conscious of the writer putting it together backstage.
Perhaps that means excess of imagination or the use of First Person narration or...???
Like making a super cake and admiring ALL the MOST luscious ingredients laid out on the bench. Alas...when combined the Whole does not outshine or do justice to the super ingredients it contains.
I kept reading parts as "real-life" Robert Dessaix travel experiences,all knitted together to make a pseudo novel.
Kester Berwick, Australian, expatriate and author of the novel "The Head of Orpheus Singing",is a real person. I met him in Sydney in late 1978, soon after returning from a year spent teaching in Athens.His novel of 1973 was having its belated Australian Launch in a private Sydney home, and I got an invite and subsequently bought the book, "The Head of...".
Dessaix's novel was an opportunity to find out more about this interesting man...although there seems to be a tendency to call him boring and unsuccessful because he didn't become famous.
The production of Chekhov plays; travels in Greece with a literary slant -the Durrells, Cavafy, Homer and Sappho make varied appearances; the uneasy start-stop-start of a love affair; the history of Kester Berwick; the lives and doings that make up an expatriate community - these are ALL fascinating topics and make for a Rich Read, especially when you have Robert Dessaix aboard as writer.
Finally for me, it never came together as a knitted whole.
I was too conscious of the writer putting it together backstage.
Perhaps that means excess of imagination or the use of First Person narration or...???
February 11, 2022
I can’t get enough of the Greek islands and the expatriates trying to find themselves there. I can’t get enough of Robert Dessaix and his superb writing that I struggle to understand but my head bursts with thinking and relating. Love, marriage, friendship, relationships of every shape and type, the nature of home. The ordinariness and the extraordinariness of it all.
February 26, 2023
I found this a strange book. A book without a story, but about stories. A book about love, but with little love in it. It is a book set in Greece, but not about Greece. I spent much of the time when reading this book wondering where it would go - in the end, I'm not sure it went anywhere. And yet I read it to the finish.
The narrator of Corfu is an actor who works in a small company rehearsing Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) in London, where he comes into contact with William, a loose-limbed, happy-go-lucky set designer. There is a frisson between them, or so our narrator thinks. William and our hero (an appropriate term I think, as there is a connexion between our protagonist and Odysseus, as is touched on throughout the book) circle around each other, with our hero unable to understand the take-it-as-it comes attitude of William.
Our hero leaves William in a hotel room in Rome. Unable to come to terms with his feelings, he flees to Corfu, where he rents the house of Kester Berwick, an expatriate Australian actor who is in Athens for reasons that our hero never finds out. He soon becomes fascinated with Berwick, through reading his clippings and manuscripts, and talking to the other expats about him. He can never pin down Berwick's true character - views of him vary from charlatan to guru. Our hero is disturbed when he finds a photograph of Berwick with William...
He learns that Berwick led a life of loss, losing lovers to time and chance and the wheels of history. Meanwhile he hears that William is on his way to Corfu, and so he flees again, this time to Lesbos, where he encounters a group of witches trying to get in touch with the other side. Eventually he returns to Corfu where he meets with William again, and they consummate their relationship.
Our hero decides to put on a production of Uncle Vanya, using locals as the actors. He and William decide to go back together to Adelaide (where both of them, and Berwick, hail from), until, on the night of the performance, William says he's not going. An epilogue, set five years later, describes how Berwick and quite a few other characters have died, and that our hero has never heard from William again.
If this seems a thin and unsatisfying story, it's because it is a thin and unsatisfying story. It's hard to have sympathy for our hero, as he seems to veer between fear, shame and paranoia about William. Much of the novel is our hero's thoughts on Chekhov, Homer, the former Empress of Austria, C.P. Cavafy, among others. At times it seemed to me that this was intellectual posturing, but as I read further that feeling faded a little, although I still struggled to see how Chekhov fitted in with, let alone should have been such a major part of, this book (Dessaix has written extensively on Russian literature, and completed a PhD on the subject).
Dessaix muses in this book on the themes of life and love. Our hero has an epiphany when rehearsing Uncle Vanya, that the ordinariness of life is just as, if not more, important as the dramatic moments. Our hero too struggles with the idea of love, with the idea of giving oneself to someone, without knowing where that might lead. As he begins to think that he can do that with William, William leaves him, and "something inside went dead".
That seems to be what happened to Kester as well, ending up on Corfu to live out his life without wants (because wanting is dangerous perhaps?). I was disappointed to find out, after I had finished this novel, that Kester Berwick is a real person - I feel it is another failure of imagination in this book.
There is no doubt this novel is well written, and that Dessaix is a man of learning, but I found that the "soul" of this book - the something inside - was, for me, dead. I don't feel that I've come to the end of this book knowing more than I did before I started it - about myself, or the world. And that's a shame.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
The narrator of Corfu is an actor who works in a small company rehearsing Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) in London, where he comes into contact with William, a loose-limbed, happy-go-lucky set designer. There is a frisson between them, or so our narrator thinks. William and our hero (an appropriate term I think, as there is a connexion between our protagonist and Odysseus, as is touched on throughout the book) circle around each other, with our hero unable to understand the take-it-as-it comes attitude of William.
Our hero leaves William in a hotel room in Rome. Unable to come to terms with his feelings, he flees to Corfu, where he rents the house of Kester Berwick, an expatriate Australian actor who is in Athens for reasons that our hero never finds out. He soon becomes fascinated with Berwick, through reading his clippings and manuscripts, and talking to the other expats about him. He can never pin down Berwick's true character - views of him vary from charlatan to guru. Our hero is disturbed when he finds a photograph of Berwick with William...
He learns that Berwick led a life of loss, losing lovers to time and chance and the wheels of history. Meanwhile he hears that William is on his way to Corfu, and so he flees again, this time to Lesbos, where he encounters a group of witches trying to get in touch with the other side. Eventually he returns to Corfu where he meets with William again, and they consummate their relationship.
Our hero decides to put on a production of Uncle Vanya, using locals as the actors. He and William decide to go back together to Adelaide (where both of them, and Berwick, hail from), until, on the night of the performance, William says he's not going. An epilogue, set five years later, describes how Berwick and quite a few other characters have died, and that our hero has never heard from William again.
If this seems a thin and unsatisfying story, it's because it is a thin and unsatisfying story. It's hard to have sympathy for our hero, as he seems to veer between fear, shame and paranoia about William. Much of the novel is our hero's thoughts on Chekhov, Homer, the former Empress of Austria, C.P. Cavafy, among others. At times it seemed to me that this was intellectual posturing, but as I read further that feeling faded a little, although I still struggled to see how Chekhov fitted in with, let alone should have been such a major part of, this book (Dessaix has written extensively on Russian literature, and completed a PhD on the subject).
Dessaix muses in this book on the themes of life and love. Our hero has an epiphany when rehearsing Uncle Vanya, that the ordinariness of life is just as, if not more, important as the dramatic moments. Our hero too struggles with the idea of love, with the idea of giving oneself to someone, without knowing where that might lead. As he begins to think that he can do that with William, William leaves him, and "something inside went dead".
That seems to be what happened to Kester as well, ending up on Corfu to live out his life without wants (because wanting is dangerous perhaps?). I was disappointed to find out, after I had finished this novel, that Kester Berwick is a real person - I feel it is another failure of imagination in this book.
There is no doubt this novel is well written, and that Dessaix is a man of learning, but I found that the "soul" of this book - the something inside - was, for me, dead. I don't feel that I've come to the end of this book knowing more than I did before I started it - about myself, or the world. And that's a shame.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2025
Existential ponderings on the nature of being and relationships, and what it is to live an ordinary life. And learnt a bit about Chekhov and Sappho along the way. On friendship [think lover with this concept] "What did I think? A thousand things, in tumbling drifts. I thought, for instance, of what it must be like to have a friend whose mere existence in the world, each time you contemplated it, was a kind of joyful homecoming."
October 10, 2021
My first Robert Dessaix picked it up from one of the many street libraries in the inner west of Sydney. Imagery is beautiful. But to me there was not so much a story than a rambling Greek island hopping holiday. Not so bad. I think Dessaix’s own personal story might be more interesting
May 15, 2025
An interesting essay-novel, which I'm glad he wrote, and I'm glad I read. But I'm not sure 'random, uninteresting, quirky, Australian' is quite enough to hang an essay-novel on. The form needs some better ideas to get going.
December 15, 2020
very engaging travel story by an insightful Australian author; good social comment; not too egotistical
August 5, 2018
“ – but basically that seems to be the story. Not for a moment, of course, did I think that that was what the book was about, so I quickly read it twice.”
Much like the quote from this book, this book itself is not exactly what it seems to be. In fact in a lot of places, it is so amorphous that you feel it is trying to find its place somehow – is it a heady romance, a bildungsroman, a philosophical treatise, a political satire? It is a lot of these things and more. What makes it interesting is this thread of meta-commentary going on. This book is very self-aware. There is a mysterious writer’s trail that the narrator follows and this mystery person seems to be analogous to the novel’s writer himself. This view-point is one of the main draws of the book. You are invested early on in who this writer character could be and as it goes on, what the character could represent.
There a lot of references, cultural and literary, that add a lot of colour. References to Chekhov abound throughout. For someone who hasn’t read almost any of the original work referred here – be it Chekhov, Odysseus or Cavafy – it was hard to relate. The very bohemian lifestyle of the characters also did not help in this account. The writing seemed targeted to an elitist sort of audience and this was off-putting in places. It did trigger a strong curiosity to read these works though and gave a basement for what they could mean. The culture of the land and the lifestyle of “settled tourists” is intriguing as well and this adds a nice layer to the narrative.
The thing that binds everything together is the narrator’s voice – a whiff of humour runs from start to end and this adds a nice light touch to the novel. The narration is also very dramatic in places, especially when it came to the romance – this appealed to sense of grandiose that is generally associated with these things and made for some enjoyable moments. There was a very nice rise and fall about the narrator’s love for a particular character although the actual relationship between the two is never much explored. There was also a very interesting examination of what “home” could mean. If any conclusion can be drawn about what this novel is about, I would say it is about finding what “home” means and finding what travelling and coming back there could be. Maybe like the initial quote suggests, I would have to read this work twice to really get to what it means. But for now, this is an interesting read that made me curious but not completely satiated. Looking forward to reading more by this writer!
Much like the quote from this book, this book itself is not exactly what it seems to be. In fact in a lot of places, it is so amorphous that you feel it is trying to find its place somehow – is it a heady romance, a bildungsroman, a philosophical treatise, a political satire? It is a lot of these things and more. What makes it interesting is this thread of meta-commentary going on. This book is very self-aware. There is a mysterious writer’s trail that the narrator follows and this mystery person seems to be analogous to the novel’s writer himself. This view-point is one of the main draws of the book. You are invested early on in who this writer character could be and as it goes on, what the character could represent.
There a lot of references, cultural and literary, that add a lot of colour. References to Chekhov abound throughout. For someone who hasn’t read almost any of the original work referred here – be it Chekhov, Odysseus or Cavafy – it was hard to relate. The very bohemian lifestyle of the characters also did not help in this account. The writing seemed targeted to an elitist sort of audience and this was off-putting in places. It did trigger a strong curiosity to read these works though and gave a basement for what they could mean. The culture of the land and the lifestyle of “settled tourists” is intriguing as well and this adds a nice layer to the narrative.
The thing that binds everything together is the narrator’s voice – a whiff of humour runs from start to end and this adds a nice light touch to the novel. The narration is also very dramatic in places, especially when it came to the romance – this appealed to sense of grandiose that is generally associated with these things and made for some enjoyable moments. There was a very nice rise and fall about the narrator’s love for a particular character although the actual relationship between the two is never much explored. There was also a very interesting examination of what “home” could mean. If any conclusion can be drawn about what this novel is about, I would say it is about finding what “home” means and finding what travelling and coming back there could be. Maybe like the initial quote suggests, I would have to read this work twice to really get to what it means. But for now, this is an interesting read that made me curious but not completely satiated. Looking forward to reading more by this writer!
November 23, 2014
Just as Odysseus on his way home from Troy, and landing on the island of Corfu, we all share that moment of rebirth when we visit a secluded beach with warm golden sands, blue seas and azure skies. Corfu is a spectacularly beautiful, spell binding Mediterranean island, at various times welcoming wanderers washed up far from home, like the Durrells, Henry Miller and author Robert Dessaix.
The Ionian Islands, Corfu amongst them, were a British Protectorate until 1864, when they were handed over to Greece. So Corfu has always had a thriving British community and they even play cricket ! Writer and artist Edward Lear visited many times and wrote in the 1860s '“Absolute glorious calm & clearness all day . . . the magnificent colour of these dells of orange & lemon trees, with the greyer olive & amethyst hills, are inimitable & wondrous…..“Can I give no idea of this Paradise island to others?"
The narrator is an aspiring actor, but in some emotional turmoil and running away from life, after relationships that have left him confused and disappointed. The author creates a troupe of players confused about the nature of attraction and desire, degrees of friendship, and basic human needs - love, and loss, betrayal and disappointment, and our continual search for intimacy, despite its elusive transience, and quotes the sages, amongst others, Pericles, Plato, Horace and Cicero. "Everyone takes great pains to select their sheep and goats and knows exactly what qualities they are looking for in their livestock, but ask them what they look for in a friend, infinitely more precious,and they're struck dumb."
But it is Chekov's writings that provide most resonance and illumination for our tetchy narrator as his own unhappy relationships have left him running in all directions. Delving into the life of his absentee 'landlord' Kester Berwick he discovers an octogenarian whose journey took him through the same puzzled emotional states before eventually finding fulfilment outside material possessions.
This light hearted romp is 'essential reading' if you're planning a holiday in Corfu or Lesbos.
The Ionian Islands, Corfu amongst them, were a British Protectorate until 1864, when they were handed over to Greece. So Corfu has always had a thriving British community and they even play cricket ! Writer and artist Edward Lear visited many times and wrote in the 1860s '“Absolute glorious calm & clearness all day . . . the magnificent colour of these dells of orange & lemon trees, with the greyer olive & amethyst hills, are inimitable & wondrous…..“Can I give no idea of this Paradise island to others?"
The narrator is an aspiring actor, but in some emotional turmoil and running away from life, after relationships that have left him confused and disappointed. The author creates a troupe of players confused about the nature of attraction and desire, degrees of friendship, and basic human needs - love, and loss, betrayal and disappointment, and our continual search for intimacy, despite its elusive transience, and quotes the sages, amongst others, Pericles, Plato, Horace and Cicero. "Everyone takes great pains to select their sheep and goats and knows exactly what qualities they are looking for in their livestock, but ask them what they look for in a friend, infinitely more precious,and they're struck dumb."
But it is Chekov's writings that provide most resonance and illumination for our tetchy narrator as his own unhappy relationships have left him running in all directions. Delving into the life of his absentee 'landlord' Kester Berwick he discovers an octogenarian whose journey took him through the same puzzled emotional states before eventually finding fulfilment outside material possessions.
This light hearted romp is 'essential reading' if you're planning a holiday in Corfu or Lesbos.
July 27, 2011
Foi neste livro que li, pela primeira vez, o poema "A Cidade" de Konstandino Kavafis. O encanto perdura até hoje, e na altura fui aprender grego moderno para poder ler o poema no original. Mas Corfu não é sobre poesia. Também é, mas não é um livro de poemas. Corfu é sobre a viagem, interior e exterior, de regresso a casa (espaço físico e intimididade dos que nos são queridos).
May 31, 2016
I really wanted to like this book because (1) Robert is a great Australian public intellectual (2) I've been to Molyvos (3) am going to Corfu and (4) have worked in the theatre....but it just didn't work for me. Was it the narrator (unsympathetic)? Was it the structure (all over the place)? Was it the tone (slightly bitter)? Or all of the above.
June 7, 2012
I got the feeling of the Greek Isles through this book. It was very eloquent, with a shrewd understanding of expatriotism. Thank you Robert! It mentions my great uncle that I used to live with (Helge) - so I guess he knew him.
July 27, 2008
Hmm. I liked the beginning of this and the Corfu setting but I got tired of it and the absentee writer whose house the narrator stays in, was a boring character. Not great..
October 4, 2008
Ex-pat Corfu, bit of a mystery, bit of same sex love interest, bit too much extra stuff about Greek mythology. Ok.
March 20, 2012
great writing and I enjoyed being taken to this colourful island and meeting his exotic characters. Nice.
January 5, 2015
Comic, sarcastic novel from Australian man of letters and well known misanthrope, Robert Dessaix; beautifully drawn characters
May 31, 2015
A wonderful book to read in the depths of winter! 4.5 stars
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January 31, 2019Most boring book I have ever read! Burn it quick. Can I award negative stars?
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