A House in Corfu

by Emma Tennant

A House in Corfu is the story of one of the most beautiful places on earth, still astonishingly unspoilt, on the west coast of Corfu. In the early 1960s, Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there. This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set in 42 hectares of land above the bay where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the people who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove at the time of putting on the roof - Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband Thodoros - and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay. Full of colour and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the building of the house, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world; the world of vine, olive and sea.

Genres: Travel, Greece, Memoir, Nonfiction

227 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2002

About the author

Since the early 1970s, when she was in her mid-thirties, Emma Tennant has been a prolific novelist and has established herself as one of the leading British exponents of "new fiction." This does not mean that she is an imitator of either the French nouveaux romanciers or the American post-modernists, although her work reveals an indebtedness to the methods and preoccupations of some of the latter. Like them, she employs parody and rewriting, is interested in the fictiveness of fiction, appropriates some science-fiction conventions, and exploits the possibilities of generic dislocation and mutation, especially the blending of realism and fantasy. Yet, although parallels can be cited and influences suggested, her work is strongly individual, the product of an intensely personal, even idiosyncratic, attempt to create an original type of highly imaginative fiction.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the early sixties, the authors parents happened to be on a cruise around the mediterranean island of Corfu, when they spotted a perfect bay. On a whim they decided there and then that this was the place that they wanted to live. Having bought the land, all 43 hectares of it, they set about building a beautiful house over looking the bay.

Tennant tells of how the house was built, and her new family life split between the UK, and this peaceful idyllic place. As the UK went through dramatic social changes, Corfu still continued the unique social customs that had taken place for centuries, but slowly things were beginning to change in the island. She writes too about the local characters who worked for them and played a part in the family's life.

There are no huge or traumatic events here, just a series of events and anecdotes of the life spent on Corfu. It is a nicely written account of this part of the world.

[The Library Lady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. Sort of a stream of conscience sort of memoir, with incident following incident. There are no explanations of the family--it took me a chapter to figure out that Tennant is a grown adult with kids of her own, and she alludes to her kids in a vague way. I couldn't tell if she had a job, lived with her parents, had a spouse or what. The parents seem charming but they are not sketched fully enough to get a sense of them.

You will get some sense of the beauty of Corfu and the sort of local customs often gushingly called "quaint". But if you are looking for a coherent whole, look elsewhere.

[Maki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Generally I love books about travel, but this one was too slow paced for me and too vague. I love Greece and have been many times, but I did not feel the passion for the people or the country/Island through her writing. Too descriptive without giving any depth of a story about anything...

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful descriptions of the author's parents buying a house in Corfu in the 1960s. this book takes you back to the time before mass tourism and a Greece where you feel as if you belong even though you don't speak the language.
Very nostalgic.

[Bucket · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book at Powell's because it was the skinniest piece of travel literature about a Greek island. It has been decent travel reading, but only because I can relate - I'm on a Greek island right now. I've enjoyed recognizing the cultural details that I'm experiencing, and reading about the landscapes and traditional foods while I'm able to enjoy and eat them.

I don't think this book would have been enjoyable if I was at home reading it though. None of the characters are developed, beyond the island itself. In fact, I'd say the house at Rovinia is the key character. This is to the point that the most important characters (the narrator, her parents, her son) are not named. The book is a succession of descriptions with the occasional anecdote - easy to pick up and put down but not easy to get really engaged in. I'd probably only recommend this to someone traveling to Corfu or island-hopping in Greece.

Themes: Greece (Corfu): culture, food, landscape, tourism, plants, building a house; family; summer; travel

[Carol Wakefield · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for books describing travel experiences and Life in foreign cultures. Tenants book covers many years as her parents build a house near a beach on the north eastern coast of Corfu and proceed to retire there. No water early on, no electricity for many years and no road leading to the house for even more years. Her visits from england to Corfu begin in the 50s and continue to present times. I enjoyed the picture of Corfu and of the inhabitants of the nearby village. I did not enjoy some of the sentences full of commas, dashes and parentheses, with numerous allusions to Greek mythology and lacking a clear relationship between subjects and verbs. I found myself rereading those unfortunate collections of words to try to put significant parts together and winkle out the meaning. It was sort of worth it.

[Zalfa Anjani · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a nice premise and a strong start but lack the narrative to make it remarkable. The plot is all cobbled up together, stitched by incoherent and not-at-all immersive dialogues. Also, in my opinion, this book can really expand itself in portraying the wonderful Corfu and its changing nature overtime, I feel like the whole book revolved just around Rovinia and some forgettable beaches. It lacks the depth and touch to really bring Corfu into life, I could barely imagine the island and the whole surrounding despite how grand and maginifeque it should be. The characters are uninteresting at best and extremely shallow at worst. Again, if only the writer explore and develop the characters more it would've been much more enjoyable.

[Georgina Moon · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I spend a lot of time in Greece and know lots of islands very well, I always enjoy looking for books about this lovely country. Emma Tennant tells a lovely story about her family who decided to relocate to greece and built a house there, in the 1960s. I particularly like the descriptions of the Greek people, the countryside, the food, the local traditions, they are all very accurate!

[Patricia E. Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable enough book in preparation for a trip to Greece that will include a ferry and overnight on the island of Corfu.

This story takes place in the 1960s before development and tourism overran much of Corfu's quiet and slow traditional way of life.

The narrator tells the story of her parents building a retirement home and plans to leave Scotland full-time.

The narrator daughter tells the story of building the house, finding a well, and interacting with the locals over a 20 or so year time span.

I was sometimes lost in translation with the intricate details of her descriptions and wandering thoughts. But I was usually able to find my place again and mentally skip over the parts I didn't understand or follow.

I'm also watching the PBS show The Durrells in Corfu, and I use images from the show (even though it takes place 40 years earlier) to help imagine the places Tennant describes in her story.

I understand that the Corfu I visit will be much different than the place I read about, I hope I will be able to look past the tourists' and development and see the land and vegetation and imagine what it was like so many, many years ago.

[Penelope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Travel, island life in Greece in the Sixties/Seventies, family, Mediterranean culture

This was a good holiday read; not too demanding, and entertaining enough. However I would have liked more autobiography from the author. For example, she suddenly discloses that she has another child, a baby, whom she is taking on holiday to Corfu, to her parents’ home. A little bit more of her own backstory would have made the book more relatable.

If you have watched the entertaining series on Netflix, The Durrells, and indeed if you have read Gerald Durrell’s ‘My Family and Other Animals’, you will find this book in much the same vein, albeit set three decades later.

What is notable is the author’s father’s steadfast wish to have no road access to his remote property. Of course the road did come later, along with the tourist hotels and their blaring disco music at night! The book left me feeling I would love to go on holiday to Greece, again, and that’s a good sign for a travel novel!

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could have been great. A people who relocate to a Greek island? Isn't that the utopia - somehow eventually just cashing in all the chips and sitting on a beautiful beach sipping wine? The problem is its hard to make a novel out of that. All stories must have conflict - isn't that interesting? We cannot identify with a story if it does not have something going on; and that is always a conflict. Sometimes its a conflict among people or societies. But if not, if its literary fiction one is seeking to write, the conflict is internal. One with oneself. As I turned the last page, I felt like I somehow was still waiting for the novel to get started; like it had been a 200 page introduction to the real story. But then it was over. And that's all I have to say about this.

[Laurie Byro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just loved this book and having also read the Gerry Durrell books about beasts in Corfu, his family experiences, this is such an easy read, it makes you "feel" the vibe as well as his. We have spent a few days in Corfu and would love to spend a few months there, this book is a good jumping off point because I don't think this plan would work for everyone, maybe not even for us. Greece is still a place where English is NOT widely spoken, then there is the remoteness, the car rental, the being so far away for medical reasons and all that, but a really good travel memoir that i read in just a few sittings.

[Theo Kokonas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The way it was written felt more like a set of memoirs of the author's Corfu experiences for the author's benefit rather than from the reader's. As a Greek I was impressed with the effort the author and her family had made to immerse themselves in the experience of the local population.
Details of the various characters in the story were limited, short and somewhat disjointed which led me to develop little interest in the fate of the characters themselves.
There were accounts of some historical events during this time range (e.g. the military junta) but limited coverage was provided.
It was ok, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[Courtney M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read and enjoyed many books about an author's experience relocating to another country,I had high hopes for this book.
Sadly, I found this book a bit disjointed and lacking the depth I was expecting. I never felt like I was really in Corfu,experiencing what life is like there. I was looking for an immersive read and this just wasn't it.

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this an ideal lockdown read. Tennant transports us from London in the sixties to the beautiful island of Corfu where her parents build a house. Myth and reality are braided together with beautiful landscapes and scrumptious food, Total escapism

[Alana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just, no.

[Darcy Marwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great descriptions as the book makes you feel as if you are there. Her characters have such flavor to them. The criticism is the style; I felt as if she became distracted and she lost me at times.

[Linda Chrisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike most of the reviewers, I found this book to be a little jewel. Emma Remnant’s love of Corfu, the home her parents built, and if the people of Corfu shines in every word.

[Tiffany Hector · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this book. But it felt a little disjointed, and sometimes hard to follow.

[Karen Ginsberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

worst book I ever read to date. Half of the book was about building the house, and the rest was just stream of thought.

[Ron Kozsan]

ooof

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it and I didn't like it. I liked reading about Corfu and its beauty. I liked that there was a map at the beginning and a picture to start each section. I could have used more personal stories about the family, who they were, what they did. The author has children, but does she have a partner/husband? I had to do some research to find out a partner, 3 husbands, and the fact that she's a very prolific, even famous, novelist. One could perhaps use an afterward to indicate whether the family still owned the house. The book begins in the 1960s, her father died in 1983, and her mother after that. Emma died in 2017, so when this book was published in 2002, an update was certainly possible. I suppose if you're a baron, as the father is, and there are royal connections, privacy is a primary concern, but still.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The lunch winds on, becomes an afternoon, a day, a cycle of the Greek sun. Retsina flows in glasses lent by the xenodoxeion in Paleocastritsa, and the frieze of figures around the long tables jerks into life, like early cinema. Yorgos the fisherman is dancing, silly-faced with love for the young woman who twirls at the end of his reach; two caryatids, brown-cheeked and no longer with faces whitened by limestone from the quarry in the trees behind our table, are coming up the beach from the clear, pale sea. Singing -- songs that are strangely sad and haunting when all around is gaiety and celebration -- echoes down the grove as it may have done thousands of years ago, when the women from Alcinous's palace disported themselves on the banks of the river here."
~~back cover

This book is neither fish nor fowl, and surprisingly unsatisfying because of that. It's the story of a family who impulsively decide to live on Corfu, purchase a piece of land and begin building their house. The piece of land turns out to be immensely unsuitable for a house, so there is a long and fairly uninteresting tale of the various travails. But in some ways that tale is superficial, as is the accounts of interactions with the locals -- these English seem to remain separate and somewhat uninterested in the local town and its people.

In many ways, it's a book where nothing happens. Oh, the house gets built (the passage from the back flap is a description of the celebration party when the house is almost finished), the family moves in, friends visit and are taken to various parts of the island for sightseeing. But for me, the book didn't capture the vivid beauty of the island, or the Corfiot life and culture, or even the family's response to moving to a strange new land.

[Annette Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written memoir of a place and time that basically doesn't exist anymore.

Yes, the author's sentences could be overly long and a tad confusing at times, but all-in-all I loved reading this book.

You got to know the people just well enough to matter; well enough to get the flavor of each character.

Maybe because I was born in Greece, and spent a lot of time there as a child and teenager, I was able to envision everything the author described. And because I speak Greek, I didn't need any further translations for the words she used, although she was good about integrating their definitions into the paragraph so non-Greek speakers wouldn't be completely lost without sacrificing the rhythm of the sentence or the mood.

Lovely book I'd recommend to anyone who's been to Greece and wants to remember-when.

[Eileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Discriptive writing of life on Corfu. The chapters aren't quite essays and don't really combine into a memoir. Sometimes insightful, often in a painfully colonial voice as the author and her family 'discover' and learn to appreciate the life and spaces enjoyed by their neighbors, quietly judging their customs and rural life. Full of flowers, sprinkled with helpfully translated Greek phrases, often straining to be erudite by making overplayed references to history and literature. It is sometimes quite plotless and misses an opportunity by offering very little about the civil war era the family was present for. It's teeming with the special disdain for tourists reserved for expats who are either being pompous or simply lack self awareness. Not my cup of tea.

[rinabeana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was full of descriptive passages that nearly made me drool since I so want to visit the Mediterranean. In my present lack of enthusiasm for non-fiction, I glossed over a bit of that. I did enjoy the anecdotes about Corfiot residents and their customs. Though my family has some Greek roots (my grandfather was born there, as were my two aunts), I would hardly say we follow many Greek customs. However, some words and foods and traditions jumped out at me and I felt connected to the story.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this one up cause Corfu is an island we are going to on our cruise. Pretty much 200 pages of description of Greek groves and sea. A very difficult book to stick with until the end, for me, for this reason. But it is exactly what is claims to be, so it delivers in that sense. What I did like was that it painted a beautiful picture of the island and got me anxious to go see such an incredible place! Would only recommend for the non fiction reader who can handle descriptive novels without a storyline.

[Carmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

She writes somewhat about a house her parents built and lived in Corfu. I say somewhat because it spans over 40 years, but there is no continuity. Except for the onslaught of noise and electricity, there is no account of how life changed on the island. There is little description of the lives of the inhabitants, with the exception of weddings. Just too little of a taste of what it could have been had it been developed more.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

After a recent trip to Corfu, my husband and I have a strong desire to go back and rent a place to stay for awhile. So this book seemed like it would be a perfect treat for me. Except that it wasn't.

The author beautifully describes the countryside, the construction of the home, and the characters who live in the community. But the difficulties with construction were the entire plot, so it never really got going.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the nineteenth book I've read this year that focused on travel. Still, I've not lost interest in this genre. What I liked best about this book was Tennant's descriptions of the water; I finally had to go to the net and see photos of the Ionian Sea. Wow. Exactly as Tennant described: a startling blue. Beautiful.