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An Affair of the Heart
An Affair of the Heart
- GenresTravelNonfiction
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
3 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Dilys Powell
24 books2 followersElizabeth Dilys Powell, CBE (20 July 1901 – 3 June 1995) was an English journalist who wrote for the The Sunday Times for over fifty years. Powell was best known as a film critic, noted for her receptiveness to cultural change in the cinema, and she coined many classic phrases about films and actors. She was also one of the founder members of the Independent Television Authority (ITA), which launched commercial TV in the UK.
Over a remarkably long career, Dilys Powell never lost in her writing the freshness of an affair with her two greatest passions, the cinema and Greece. It was as a film critic that she was most widely known, but her writing powers were most fully expressed in her autobiographical books, most especially in An Affair of the Heart, which places her with Lawrence Durrell, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Kevin Andrews and Henry Miller as a writer for whom the essence of Greek reality is the journey towards personal discovery.
Over a remarkably long career, Dilys Powell never lost in her writing the freshness of an affair with her two greatest passions, the cinema and Greece. It was as a film critic that she was most widely known, but her writing powers were most fully expressed in her autobiographical books, most especially in An Affair of the Heart, which places her with Lawrence Durrell, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Kevin Andrews and Henry Miller as a writer for whom the essence of Greek reality is the journey towards personal discovery.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 23, 2020
Dilys Powell was one hell of a woman, way ahead of her time in some aspects, it is not often you would find a woman travelling on her own in the 1940/50's, especially in a country that was very male oriented. She handles herself well, she doesn't shy away from any experience...she doesn't get too fazed with how often she gets lost. She started her love affair with Greece in the 1930's when she joined her husband on archaeology digs and it must have taken a huge amount of character to go back after his sudden death.
I have to admit I found this book a little tough to get into, the first 50 pages are brief memoirs of early visits, the villagers get mentioned in a way that implies you should know them already, but when she goes back for her first proper visit after WWII things improve big time. She travels a lot of the time by foot, meeting a lot of locals, her main purpose for being there is to find out how the Greeks are recovering from WWII and the civil war they had immediately afterwards. One thing that stands out about the Greeks was how hospitable they were, always offering a free drink, food, lift or a roof to sleep under. Another visit was to document one of the first instances of aquatic archaeology using a new fangled invention....the aqualung. She shows just how independent she was by giving one of these a go without any training and nearly killing herself, this didn't put her off from trying again later.
There is one underpinning feeling the reader gets throughout these travels and that is grief, revisiting these places she spent so much time with her husband brings back a lot of memories. When she visits his grave for the first time in a couple of decades you really can feel her pain in the words.
Yet another fine release from Eland Publishing, part memoir and part history book this was a fascinating read.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...
I have to admit I found this book a little tough to get into, the first 50 pages are brief memoirs of early visits, the villagers get mentioned in a way that implies you should know them already, but when she goes back for her first proper visit after WWII things improve big time. She travels a lot of the time by foot, meeting a lot of locals, her main purpose for being there is to find out how the Greeks are recovering from WWII and the civil war they had immediately afterwards. One thing that stands out about the Greeks was how hospitable they were, always offering a free drink, food, lift or a roof to sleep under. Another visit was to document one of the first instances of aquatic archaeology using a new fangled invention....the aqualung. She shows just how independent she was by giving one of these a go without any training and nearly killing herself, this didn't put her off from trying again later.
There is one underpinning feeling the reader gets throughout these travels and that is grief, revisiting these places she spent so much time with her husband brings back a lot of memories. When she visits his grave for the first time in a couple of decades you really can feel her pain in the words.
Yet another fine release from Eland Publishing, part memoir and part history book this was a fascinating read.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...
September 15, 2021
Dilys Powell’s first fell in love with the country and people of Greece in 1931. She was there with her husband, the archaeologist Humfry Payne, who was undertaking an archaeological dig at the time. She came to know the villagers who were being employed as labourers on the site and came to know them as friends as they spent years camping on the sun-drenched site.
Tragically her husband was to die in 1936 from a staphylococcus infection. Her experience of the Greek people led to a Political Warfare Executive, but it was a place that she longed to return to. That opportunity came after the war when she returned time and time again to Perachora, the site of Payne’s excavations of the Heraion.
The water was soft and warm. I was content not to be reminded of the secrets beneath it, but simply to swim: to float, leisurely and indolent with the sun drying onto my face; to be solitary.
This book is a collection of her visits to the country, there are stories of her exploring remote parts in the company of shepherds walking along tracks to the coast. She learns of the atrocities that took place during the war, of villages being burnt in reprisal for the smallest of misdemeanours. All around homes are being rebuilt and she talks to those that survived the massacre by running to the mountains. She has a couple of unsuccessful attempts at diving but prefers to stick with the snorkel
Even though the timeline was fragmented in this book as she visits Greece multiple times, it still worked for me. It gives a sense of her picking the pieces up of her life after losing her husband, travelling back to the place that she loved and rebuilding her life once again. What her writing does best for me is the detail she reveals of the places that she passes through and the people that she meets. It is evocative travel writing though and she captures the moments that the country is changing before and after the war.
Tragically her husband was to die in 1936 from a staphylococcus infection. Her experience of the Greek people led to a Political Warfare Executive, but it was a place that she longed to return to. That opportunity came after the war when she returned time and time again to Perachora, the site of Payne’s excavations of the Heraion.
The water was soft and warm. I was content not to be reminded of the secrets beneath it, but simply to swim: to float, leisurely and indolent with the sun drying onto my face; to be solitary.
This book is a collection of her visits to the country, there are stories of her exploring remote parts in the company of shepherds walking along tracks to the coast. She learns of the atrocities that took place during the war, of villages being burnt in reprisal for the smallest of misdemeanours. All around homes are being rebuilt and she talks to those that survived the massacre by running to the mountains. She has a couple of unsuccessful attempts at diving but prefers to stick with the snorkel
Even though the timeline was fragmented in this book as she visits Greece multiple times, it still worked for me. It gives a sense of her picking the pieces up of her life after losing her husband, travelling back to the place that she loved and rebuilding her life once again. What her writing does best for me is the detail she reveals of the places that she passes through and the people that she meets. It is evocative travel writing though and she captures the moments that the country is changing before and after the war.
December 19, 2023
waaaaauuuw
duurde echt een goede 100 pagina's voordat ik het leuk vond maar toen was ik daar. mensen waren vroeger zo anders, nu hebben ze allemaal wel een monobloc.
duurde echt een goede 100 pagina's voordat ik het leuk vond maar toen was ik daar. mensen waren vroeger zo anders, nu hebben ze allemaal wel een monobloc.
February 20, 2015
This is a wonderful evocation of the Greece of more than half a century ago recovering from the horrors of German occupation and civil war. Dilys Powell's account of her repeated visits to Perachora, the village where she spent happy seasons on an archaeological excavation with her husband in the 1930s, is a tribute to Greek hospitality and stoicism. Though published in 1957, "An Affair of the Heart" vividly recalled to me the Greece I know and love from my own visits a generation later. Her use of archaic English to represent Greek conversation in translation I found rather strange but it does give a sense of the language's ancient roots and modern idiom. My pleasure in reading this book has made me long to return to Greece myself and feel a strong solidarity with the Greeks in their current troubles.
August 19, 2011
You may have to like archeology and Greece to enjoy this beautifully written memoir of Powell's times spent in that country at remote digs, walking from village to village, and memorializing her life with her husband in the 1930's at the a famous site and its village.
December 1, 2023
A school tour operator pointed me in the direction of Dilys Powell whilst I was struggling to get a trip to Greece over the line. I'm very grateful she did. This beautifully written book offers a very welcome insight into the male-dominated world of early 20th C Aegean archaeology and scholarship. Though she is quick to remind us of her lack of qualifications and how inadequate she sometimes felt in this milieu, it is very clear that she was an outstanding judge and commentator on humanity (and you only need look at how successful she herself became).
We see many of the great and the good here, including the usual suspects of Sir Arthur Evans, Sinclair Hood, John Pendlebury, Alan Wace, but more importantly we see the hardships of a local Greek community on the remote peninsula of Perachora trying (largely in vain) to exploit the opportunities offered by the discovery of an important archaeological site that drew the eyes of the world, for a time. Powell is deeply sensitive to them and, it's clear to see, the sentiments were returned, and not just to her. Powell's husband - Humfry Payne - was one of the rising stars of the discipline. A young director of the British School at Athens and the lead archaeologist of the heraion at Perachora in the early 20th C, he died tragically young of a bacterial infection that would easily have been remedied today. Sadly, the medicine despatched to him from England arrived a week too late and Payne was buried in the cemetery at Mycenae, which he deeply loved. After visiting Mycenae myself and staying at a local hotel, the very knowledgeable owner Vassiliki confirmed just how much he was loved. In fact, her grandfather was at Payne's bedside when he died.
Despite this tragedy, which readers can sense in the way it seems to make Powell wince as her reminiscences get too close (despite the passage of the years), and despite the deprivations of the war years, this is somehow still an optimistic, gorgeous book and does justice to the timeless beauty of Greece and the irrepressible spirit of the Greeks.
We see many of the great and the good here, including the usual suspects of Sir Arthur Evans, Sinclair Hood, John Pendlebury, Alan Wace, but more importantly we see the hardships of a local Greek community on the remote peninsula of Perachora trying (largely in vain) to exploit the opportunities offered by the discovery of an important archaeological site that drew the eyes of the world, for a time. Powell is deeply sensitive to them and, it's clear to see, the sentiments were returned, and not just to her. Powell's husband - Humfry Payne - was one of the rising stars of the discipline. A young director of the British School at Athens and the lead archaeologist of the heraion at Perachora in the early 20th C, he died tragically young of a bacterial infection that would easily have been remedied today. Sadly, the medicine despatched to him from England arrived a week too late and Payne was buried in the cemetery at Mycenae, which he deeply loved. After visiting Mycenae myself and staying at a local hotel, the very knowledgeable owner Vassiliki confirmed just how much he was loved. In fact, her grandfather was at Payne's bedside when he died.
Despite this tragedy, which readers can sense in the way it seems to make Powell wince as her reminiscences get too close (despite the passage of the years), and despite the deprivations of the war years, this is somehow still an optimistic, gorgeous book and does justice to the timeless beauty of Greece and the irrepressible spirit of the Greeks.
December 31, 2025
The adventures she has had are insane in this day and age, but are especially crazy in the 1920s-1940s. I couldn’t believe the stories of her solo day hikes through rural greece no roads, no map, just a few grapes in her bag, her mackintosh, and following the landmarks in her memory. She seems like an incredible character and this was such a nice snapshot perspective on history that focused on the people.
March 15, 2024
could not read this, very racist
December 15, 2011
I really enjoyed this - but mostly because it is a love letter to Greece and I was there as I was reading it. She does a marvelous job of capturing the personality of the country - and it seems as true now as it was in the 40's and 50's (the time period she is writing about)
January 14, 2017
Splendid!! A lovely melange of travel, history, autobiography, and a very personal portrayal of several sojourns in Greece between the mid-1930s and the mid-1950s.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews