Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu

by Lawrence Durrell

In his youth, before he became a celebrated writer and poet, Lawrence Durrell spent four transformative years on the island jewel of Corfu, fascinated by the idyllic natural beauty and blood-stained ancient history within its rocky shores.While his brother Gerald collected animals as a budding naturalist - later fictionalised in My Family and Other Animals and filmed as The Durrells in Corfu - Lawrence fished, drank and befriended the local villagers.After World War II catapulted him back into a turmoiled world, Durrell never forgot the wonders of Corfu. Prospero's Cell is his magical evocation of the blazing Aegean landscape, brimming with memories of the places and people that changed him forever.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Greece, Memoir, History, Classics, Biography

Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

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

[Metodi Markov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea unfortunately...

Тъжно е да гледаш през очите на възрастен, това което си видял през погледа на дете...

Този опит за хроника на Корфу е бъкана с подробности - автори, митове, кой минал или заминал, но е предадена механично, без страст или душа. Тегаво ми беше и я влачих бая време.

Лари е меланхоличен, понякога надменен до неприятен, безразличен или незаинтересован. Няма я тая чиста любов на брат му към острова и хората му, даже ми се струва, че откровено ги презира...

Теодор и Спиро са обезличени, принизени до особняци, имащи само практическа стойност и не ми беше приятно да чета за тях в такава светлина. Прекрасните описания на природата и някои интересни случки не успяват да спасят ситуацията.

Изобщо, тази книга губи по всички параграфи от жизнената, пълна с обожание към живота във всичките му възможни форми и Корфу трилогия на Джери.

Иначе, силно препоръчвам "Александрийски квартет" - там той е вече огромен писател!

[Lynne King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book the second time around just confirms what a brilliant writer Durrell is. My love affair with his works began in my twenties with the four novels comprising what would later become The Alexandria Quartet, and his subsequent novels mainly written in France including the magnificent book The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx. I cannot fault anything about him. His travel books, humour, poetry and letters especially those written to and received from Henry Miller, who would indirectly be responsible for ensuring that Lawrence Durrell would enter the literary arena.

Exquisite literature - my!

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fate can be a cruel mistress. And sometimes she can be wonderfully kind and place all the ingredients in the right place at the right time thereby creating something almost on the other side of wonderful. Lawrence Durrell could have been born in a time and place when he chose or was forced to have a static existence. He might have lived without the funds to furnish his travels and his exploration of all sides of the Mediterranean. Or he might have been born with funds and an unquenchable wanderlust but without the talent to commit any of his observations to paper.

Thankfully he wasn't.

Instead he lived during a time of political and social upheaval - the dark days between World War I and World War II which made him leave England in search of landscape less bleak and later forced him to retreat from the onslaught of Nazi occupied France and return to Corfu. However far from being some sort of impoverished self-imposed exile, he was able to make these moves in comfort and with funds at this disposal which provided adequate leisure time to read, think, research and observe his new surroundings.

Durrell's time on the Isle of Corfu (Corcyra) is documented in this short and bitter sweet travelogue. Sparse and sparing like the landscape but also naked, mellowed and smooth like the waves which roll around his island home, this book made it possible for me to fall in love with a place which I have never visited. Durrell's charm is that you don't resent his peripatetic writers lifestyle or the seeming ease with which he blends into communities, not only on Corfu but in Cairo, Alexandria, Paris, Languedo, Cordoba, Rhodes and all the other places he had the good fortune to call his home. He writes with an easy style and gentle manner which is a blend of diary, poetry, history, philosophy and fiction and yet it comes out wrapped up as a travelogue and I probably couldn't dispute that it serves variously as all of these things.

If you are looking for a book with the ability to lift you out of your armchair and the winter doldrums and transport you to rugged white cliffs, sparkling azure seas and the tug of the sea breeze in your hair then this is what you've been waiting for.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago when I was young, Lawrence Durrell was a god to me; and his Alexandria Quartet was like sacred scripture. Now that I have aged and learned a thing or two, I see that Durrell is something of a phony. His book on Corfu -- Prospero's Cell -- has many of the same characteristics that I loved in the Quartet: the significant encounters with a group of eccentric characters, leading to significant discussions and multiple epiphanies based on their knowledge of the local area.

Now that I am better read, I am astonished by things that Durrell failed to discuss, such as the role of the island in the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides, when different parties supporting Athens or Corinth led to ugly scenes of violence and destruction. It's not even mentioned in the chronology which appears as an appendix.

At one point, one of Durrell's characters, the sage Count D., makes fun of the British author to his face. When asked what kind of picture his book will present of Corfu, the Count answers:

“It is difficult to say.... A portrait inexact of detail, containing bright splinters of landscape, written out roughly, as if to get rid of something which was troubling the optic nerves. You are the kind of person who would go away and be frightened to return in case you were disappointed; but you would send others and question them eagerly about it.”

Soon, most of them would in fact leave the island, because it is that twilight period in which all of Europe saw the advancing shadow of World War II, as if it were a dark cloud from Mordor.

Yet, withal, I do not regret giving the book five stars. So Durrell is a bit of a fake: He seems to not have an interior life of his own. Everything is externalized through a dozen characters who surround him and serve to bring out the details about which he wants to write. I am not even sure that many of the characters are real: They are just too neat, too pat. I am particularly surprised at Durrell's female companion, whom he calls simply N., and with whom he may or may not have had a relationship.

But it doesn't really matter. The inexact details, the "bright splinters of landscape," are really good in and of themselves. So Durrell isn't a god any more: He's still an interesting writer, and Prospero's Cell is a legitimate travel classic.

[Ariel Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins. All the way across Italy you find yourself in a landscape severely domesticated--each valley laid out after the architect's pattern, brilliantly lighted, human. But once you strike out from the flat and desolate Calabrian mainland toward the sea, you aware of a change in the heart of things: aware of the horizon beginning to stain at the rim of the world, aware of islands coming out of the darkness to meet you.

In the morning you wake to the taste of snow on the air, and climbing the companion ladder, suddenly enter the penumbra of shadow cast by the Albanian mountains--each wearing its cracked crown of snow--desolate and repudiating stone.

A peninisula nipped off while red hot and and allowed to cool into an antarctica of lava. You are aware not so much of a landscape coming to meet you invisibly over those blue miles of water as of a climate. You enter Greece as one might enter a dark crystal; the form of things becomes irregular, refracted. Mirages suddenly swallow islands, and wherever you look the trembling curtain of the atmosphere deceives.

--the first paragraph of Prospero's Cell

"No tongue: all eyes: be silent" -- The Tempest

[Judith E · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to pay particular attention to the first sentence of a book, and Durrell sails us to his island with, “Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins.”

Durrell’s Corfu is pre-WWII, it’s an unspoiled countryside, the characters are vintage Greek. He unveils the various influences the world has poured down on Corfu. Tiberius had a summer home here, Antony and Octavia visited, Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” may have placed Prospero here. There are towns that “contend for Ulysses and Nausicaa”. Strong Venetian influences still exist today.

For some strange reason, Durrell fills the final pages with sporadic journal pages from Edward Lear, who resided on Corfu for part of his career. They add nothing except to confuse the reader. But, Durrell cannot be faulted for his poetic descriptions, “The little bay lies in a trance, drugged with its own extraordinary perfection—a conspiracy of light, air, blue sea, and cypresses.”

Rounded up from 3.5.

[Ryan Murdock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Born in colonial India in the foothills of the Himalayas but sent to boarding school in England, Lawrence Durrell hated the buttoned-up lifestyle of the north. When his father died he saw an opportunity to escape. Somehow, by some incredible art of persuasion, he convinced his mother to pack up their entire family—four children, of whom he was the eldest—and move them all to the Greek island of Corfu.

They lived a crazy island life with eccentric locals and writers dropping by—people like Freya Stark and Patrick Leigh Fermor—and during all those years Durrell plugged away in a little stone house on the side of a mountain and taught himself to write. Prospero’s Cell is the story of those years.

When you’ve finished this, read Reflections on a Marine Venus and Bitter Lemons, Durrell’s other island books. And then read everything else he’s written. Everything.

[Nora Barnacle · Rating 1 out of 5]

“A vazduh (svež poput daha što se izvija iz srca dinje) nevidljivo se izliva preko prozorskih daski i prožima mirisom ugašenih svetiljki. Tako je tiho da ljudski glas, gore u sutonu, pod maslinama, uznemirava i draži čoveka baš kao glas same savesti. Ispod staklaste površine mora ribe se, pod uticajem radoznalosti i straha, kreću nalik nagoveštaju ribe. Zvezde sada blistaju, ledenim vetrom odozgo raspršene i zategnute po ovoj nepatvorenoj euklidovskoj površini.”


Deder, da se za junačku probavu pitamo!

[Desislava Filipova · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Пещерата на Просперо" на Лорънс Дърел e връщане назад към времето прекарано от Дърел на острова, на моменти звучи като реалност, в други само като далечен спомен, сън преплетен с реалността: "Чист софизъм е да си представиш, че съществува строго очертана разделителна линия между света наяве и света насън". Всяко изречение носи различни нюанси и емоции, топлина, жажда да откриеш всяко кътче от острова, да се насладиш на всеки миг с една особена съзерцателност и на моменти меланхолия, сякаш това, което усещаш никога повече няма да се повтори. В предговора Дърел споделя, че е написал книгата в Александрия, в мо��ент когато Европа е мрачна и над нея е надвиснала безнадеждност, той се е обърнал назад към преживяванията си на острова, за да си спомни красотата. Заедно с първата си съпруга Н. са наели стара рибарска къща в северния край на острова. Прочетох тази малка книга много бавно, за да се насладя на всеки миг, усещах мириса на морето, кристалната вода в различни нюанси между синьото и изумруденото, стърчащите кипарисите понякога неподвижни, понякога полюшвани от вятъра, сребристите маслинови дръвчета с най-различни форми, белите скали, рибарските лодки, които излизат нощем с карбидни лампи, разнообразието от рибки, змиорки и октоподи под повърхността на морето. Времето е нещо абстрактно на острова, то не се измерва с часове и минути, а с цигари. В описанието на селския човек има известна острота, вместо умиление, са показани различни черти, които правят образа му колоритен със своето простодушие, хитрост, с разкази и преувеличения, но и с добродушие, суровият живот е оставил своя отпечатък. Националният герой Карагьозис "почива върху идеята за бедния и онеправдаван малак човек, който гледа да надхитри света с едното си лукавство", историите ми напомниха малко на Хитър Петър и Настрадин Ходжа, поднесени с хумор. Не усетих високомерие и снобизъм, може би само лека дистанцираност и различен темперамент. От време навреме поетичните описания са прекъсвани от различни истории и легенди, фрагменти от историята на острова, погледът се обръща към Античния свят и проследява във времето накратко различни моменти, за островът са водени борби, сменяло се е владението му, накратко без утежняващи подробности Дърел рисува природна и историческа картина на острова, такъв, какъвто го е видял между историческите факти и митологичния ореол. Обществото и историите на Зариан, Теодор и граф Д., с техните разговори са чудесно допълнение към описанието на острова, усеща се близостта им. Една чудесна компания в миг на безвремие. "Други страни предлагат на човек да открие нови нрави, познания, природа; Гърция предлага нещо по трудно - да откриеш себе си."

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Island of Corfu has a long and sometimes bloody history. For the past 2000 years, it has absorbed elements of its culture from the surroundings and then made them its own. The Durrells are now linked with the island after Lawrence persuaded his mother to move there with his siblings prior to World War II.

You don’t get much of Durrell in this book, rather you get a series of profiles and vignettes about the people and the island written in a diary form. He weaves together a history of the people and the place as well as an insider’s perspective of life on the island. My favourite chapter was the one titled Landscape with Olive Trees, this tells how the people live and we get to meet the Count and man who still observes the pagan practices that the Orthodox Church has still not banished from the island.

It is the sweetest of the island waters, because it tastes of nothing but the warm afternoon, the breath of the cicadas, the idle winds crisping at little corners of the inert sea, which stretches away towards Africa, death-blue and timeless.

This is a beautifully written book about the wonderful island of Corfu. I was fortunate enough to be on the island whilst reading this too. A lot has changed since Durrell was there and wrote these words, but a lot has stayed the same too. The people are still warm and welcoming, the landscape is still sun-drenched and the silvery leaves of the olive trees still shimmer in the wind and the sea glistens in the sun. I haven’t read any of his fiction books yet, only a couple of his non-fiction and this is really good. If you are unable to visit this place for whatever reason, let this book take you there in an instant.

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

This is my second book by the English travel writer, poet and biographer Lawrence Durrell


The first was with Bitter Lemons of Cyprus where he recounts his experiences in the turbulent Cyprus of the 50's.
In that book he had a more chauvinist/imperialist tone. Cyprus was a British colony after all.


Here in Corfu he is more of a traveller. He visited it almost 20 years before Cyprus. From April of '37 to September of '38.
The epilogue of the book was written in 1941 in Alexandria when Greece was occupied by the Nazis.


Through his experiences we see a Corfu of another era with strong Italian influences.
We learn about the history of the island, its inhabitants, its cuisine. We also learn how this book got its title.


Prospero, the protagonist of Shakespeare's (probably) latest work, The Tempest, escapes to a desert island.
A count who Durrell met in Corfu claims that this desert island is Corfu.


True or false, I had a good time with this book. After my corporeal holidays in London, I went on an imaginary holiday to Corfu with this book.
Recommended for those who love Corfu and travel books in general


Fun Fact: Victorian poet and painter Edward Lear visited Corfu about 80 years before Durrell, who as a tribute(?) lists some of Lear's paintings while in Corfu as well as an appendix. with Lear's Corfiot diary.

More in Greek at βιβλιοαλχημείες

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled onto Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell from the BBC and Masterpiece Theater’s excellent series, “ The Durrells in Corfu”. While Gerald Durrell possesses an extraordinary ability to observe nature in its most minute forms and communicate that in the clearly written and entertaining style exemplified in his books, his elder brother Lawrence has an equal skill in his observance of time, place and people. His style is erudite and flowery at times, reflecting his genuine passion for intellect and discourse.
“ Prospero’s Cell: A guide to the landscape and manners of Corfu is one of his travel books. It is in part a memoir of his years spent living in Corfu in the 1930’s, and in part a travel guide of the island. Durrell’s descriptions of the geography and history of this Ionian island , and their impact on the lifestyle of the Corfu people and their colorful and unique culture is described with a poet’s sensibility. The title comes from Shakespeare’s play, “ The Tempest”, whose main character, Prospero remains one of his most complex and paradoxical personalities. There are many who believe the setting of “ The Tempest” is Corfu.
In describing the Count, a philosophical figure with whom Durrell spends countless hours, he says the following:
“ i have wasted all these words on describing the Count in the hope of isolating that quality in him which is so admirable and original, and when he begins to talk I grasp at once what it is. He is the possessor of a literary mind completely uncontaminated by the struggle to achieve a technique; he lacks the artifice of presentation, the corrupting demon of form. It is a mind with the pollen still fresh in it.”
That last sentence creates an unforgettable image… beautifully written.

[Desislava Mihaylova · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Но може ли изобщо тези набързо изписани страници да пресъздадат друго освен малка частица от всичко това“. Остров Корфу през 1937/8 г., предаден през очите на писателя Лорънс Дърел (брат на Джералд Даръл). Това не е пътепис, нито дневник, нито история със строга структура, това е книга, която носи усещането за поезия. Изпъстрена е с красиви описания, които сякаш са в стихове – „тоновете капят в тишината“. Море, усещането, че се потапяш в него, кичести маслинови дръвчета, сладко грозде и всичко сякаш е намазано със зехтин. Прекрасно е предаден духът на острова, а правдивото описание на народопсихологията на гърците на места доста ме забавляваше. Книгата е като носталгичен поглед към едно отминало време, което никога няма да се върне. Към един свят, който е разрушен след Втората световна война, към едно спокойствие и красота, които не е ясно дали авторът би намерил отново. За мен беше истинско удоволствие, дано е така и за следващия, който ще посегне към нея.

[Goutzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Συνδύασα την ανάγνωση αυτού του οδοιπορικού με το ταξίδι μου στην Κέρκυρα και ήταν μια πολύ όμορφη εμπειρία.
Το βιβλίο μεταστοιχειώθηκε σε χρονοκάψουλα που με μετέφερε σε αλλοτινές περιόδους της ιστορίας του νησιού και της παράδοσης του.
Από την μυθολογία και την αρχαία Ελλάδα μέχρι την σύγχρονη περίοδο του μεσοπολέμου ο συγγραφέας μιλάει για την εμπειρία του με το φως κ την ομορφιά του τόπου αυτού και δηλώνοντας πως : Σε άλλες χώρες μπορεί ν'ανακαλύψεις τοπία, παραδόσεις κι έθιμα. Η Ελλάδα έχει κάτι σκληρότερο να σου προσφέρει - την ανακάλυψη του εαυτού σου.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

At its best, this is an enchanting read, weaving together portraits of local life, the history of an island, the character of its people, the beauty of the local myths, and the beauty of the local geography. I loved the chapters that focus on history in particular, especially the stories of St. Spyridon, or of the various conquests and battles over Corfu and how they have impacted the people who live there.

Durrell, though, is drawn to flights of overly lofty prose, in a self-consciously Romantic vein, and often in the service of an Orientalism that places 'the Greek' as somehow more earthy, more in touch with nature, more human than the high culture Europeans with which he implicitly compares them. His quickness to generalisation about the intrinsic nature of Greeks is nearly as cloying as his florid words.

The anecdotes of friendship, of just passing time together in idle chatter, of engaging in speculative history, and of observing locals in their daily life would all be entirely charming if presented straightforwardly; by trying so hard to imbue them with cosmic significant, Durrell has lost the simple charm of his subjects.

If you're interested in the history and people of Corfu, this book has much to recommend it, but in trying to elevate the simple to the lofty, it loses the simplicity which the author intends to elevate.

[Joanar · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most magical experiences I had with a book. Lawrence Durrell writes so well about the heavy air of warm days in the Mediterranean. I always feel that he exists to put my experiences and feelings into words. Goes directly into my top 10 books ever. I wish it was translated to Portuguese so I could share it with more people.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite book to read and read again when the weather gets cold. Inspires travel lust and urges to quit one's job. A collection of Durrell's memories, journal entries and highly romanticized impressions from his travels in Corfu, Greece, before WWII.

[Anastasia Baka · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because I read this book while in Corfu, which made it a magical experience. Probably 4 without the live demonstration of the island's beauty.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as a poetic and adult complement to Gerald Durrell's childhood memories of Corfu. Many of the same characters reappear and are seen thru Lawrence's adult eyes. The epilogue is sad; the island seems to have been a bombing range during WWII.

[Ivan Zaikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

,,Философията- ни каза той веднъж- е съмнение,което живее у нас като анкилостома, причинява ни бедност и липса на апетит. Най-ненадейно един ден се събуждаш с абсолютна увереност, че деветдесет и пет процента от дейностите на човешкия род- към който се предполага, че принадлежим- нямат абсолютно никаква връзка с теб самия.И тогава се питаш какво те очаква от тук нататък."

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in journal format this is part history part travelogue of Corfu. Lawrence Durrell lived on Corfu for little over five years with his first wife Nancy Myers. Nancy has been airbrushed out of Gerald's account "My family and other animals" and doesn't feature much in Lawrence's account. When she does feature she is dubbed "N". He moved to the island when he was twenty six years old.

"It is April and we have taken an old fisherman's house in the extreme north of the island Kalamai. Ten sea-miles from the town, and some thirty kilometres by road, it offers all the charms of seclusion. A white house set like a dice on a rock already venerable with the scars of wind and water. The hill runs clear up into the sky behind it, so that the cypresses and olives overhang this room in which I sit and write".

Lawrence wanted to live the bohemian life and indeed it did sound like a salubrious existence spending time engaging in 'pirofani' (night fishing), swimming naked in the bathing pool near the shrine of St. Arsenius, writing, drinking good wine and spending time with other intellectuals such as Theodore a doctor and erudite naturalist who features largely in Gerald's book "My family and other Animals". The wonderful Spiro is also mentioned. He is a taxi driver, procurer of goods, tour guide and friend to the Durrell family. There is Zarian an Armenian poet, artist, polyglot and arts journalist.

There is a section on the island Saint, St. Spiridion who is interred in a sarcophagus in a chapel that pilgrims can visit. Spiridion was not a local but a Cypriot shepherd originally. Many saints seem to have started their careers as shepherds. There are some great descriptions of traditional finery and dance.

He captures the Greek people perfectly when he draws a comparison between the citizens on Corfu and the characters in Homer's 'Odyssey', "it is a portrait of a nation which rings clear to day as when it was written. The loquacity, the shy cunning, the mendacity, the generosity, the cowardice and bravery, the almost comical inability of self analysis. The unloving humour and the scolding. Nowhere is it possible to find a flaw".

Another little observation was the peasant measurement of time and distance which is done by cigarettes. "Ask a peasant how far a village is and he will reply, nine times out of ten, that it is a matter of so many cigarettes".

Lawrence's Corfu is a waking dream of languid detachment from English concerns and a salubrious existence.

This book didn't always engage me. I found it to be too fragmented and unedited and as a result sometimes not self explanatory. Having visited the island I recognised one of the locations he described but if I was recommending a book to take to Corfu it would be Gerald's "My family and other animals".

[Czarny Pies · Rating 1 out of 5]

Faute de pouvoir donner cinq étrons, je le donne une étoile.
I am stunned that one of my favourite authors could have written a book this bad. I read it on the heels of his brother's Corfu Trilogy expecting an exposition on the island similar to that on Cyprus found in "Better Lemons." Instead I got a grotesque mishmash of recollections and preposterous ideas. The book is dominated by descriptions of alcoholic conversations involving Durrell and the other members of his bohemian circle on Corfu that he frequented between 1938 and 1941.
The primary leitmotif of Corfu as Prospero's island is typical of the book's fundamental problems. After several rounds of drinks, one of Durrell's friends puts forward the idea that Corfu is a good match for the island on which Shakespeare's Tempest takes place. Shakespeare however never left England during is life and certainly never visited the Greek archipelago. The idea that he had been thinking of Corfu as the location for the Tempest was no more that the witticism of an inebriated person and certainly lacks the substance to carry to a book.
Durrell's efforts to delve into the folklore and traditions of the Corfiots are nothing short of disastrous. At one point he informs the reader that the shepherds frequently have favourite ewes with which they perform sexual acts. The source for this tasteless revelation again appears to have been drunken chatter heard in a taverna. Like his good friend Henry Miller is capable of passages in dreadful taste.
The sad thing is that Durrell knew both Corfu and Greek culture very well. Amongst other things he was the translator of Seferis and other Greek authors. Unfortunately, none of Durrell's remarkable understanding and erudition can be found in this appalling work.
For me the last chapter which is constituted of extracts from the letters written in Corfu by the 19th century English poet and illustrator Edward Lear constitutes the low point of the book. Lear's correspondence offers no insight into anything at all and one suspects that Durrell included the material in the book in order to achieve a certain minimum number of pages for the publisher.

[Udeni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for Book Riots's 2017 "Read Harder" challenge: read a travel book.

"Prospero's Cell" was the first of Lawrence Durrell's hugely successful Mediterranean islands books, and it launched a rush of sun-starved Brits to the Greek Islands. His flowery prose caught the imagination of a post-war generation, who relished his descriptions of "gigantic plane trees, the bluff ilex-grown fortresses...a conspiracy of light, air blue sea and cypresses."

He conjures up a world where he and his beautiful wife move to Corcyra (Corfu), buy a boat and lead a magical life. They dive off the harbour to catch fish, they have moonlight picnics with friends, they eat breakfast in their little house: "grapes, Hymettos honey, black coffee, eggs, and the light, clear-tasting Papasrratis cigarette."

Of course, this was a fictional existence. Lawrence Durrell had moved to the island much earlier with his mother and siblings. His brother, the animal-lover Gerald Durrell, eventually became much more famous and published his own memoirs of Corfu. In Gerald's version of events, Lawrence lived with his mother. Gerald doesn't mention a beautiful wife at all. Finally, Sappho Durrell, Lawrence's daughter with his second wife (he had 4 wives in all) accused her father of sexual abuse. The abuse happened on the island, when Sappho was a teenager, living with her father after her mother had left him. This could partly explain why Lawrence Durrell is very rarely read now. I certainly found it to read his sensuous descriptions of landscapes without being a little creeped out:

"We came upon a promontory with its beautiful clean surface of metamorphic stone covered in olive and ilex in the shape of the mons pubis. This is become our unregretted home. A world. Corcyra."

Would love to hear comments from readers who enjoyed the book. I think I may have been a little harsh here.

[Branimira Aleksandrova · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Много е важно, когато човек описва тези селяни, да не изпада в умиление и невинна духовност. Тъй като голяма част от творците са обикновено градски чада, лесно се прехласват по всичко селско, дори народните носии им изглеждат невероятно романтични. Истината е, че средният балкански селянин е доста прост и в същото време толкова продажен, хитър, користолюбив и коварен и много по-рядко симпатичен, колкото и средният градски провинциалист. Трябва да кажа, че цялото това пасторално очарование на въпросните селски общества е доста преувеличено."

"Техният национален характер /на гърците/ почива върху идеята за бедния и онеправдан малък човек, който гледа да надхитри света с едното си лукавство. Като се прибави към това и пиперливият му хумор, с който се присмива над себе си, се получава безсмъртният грък. човек импулсивен, самохвалко, нетърпелив, кибритлия, отзивчив, изобретателен и схватлив. Едновременно страхливец и герой; човек, разкъсван между вродената си героичност и неизлечимото си сметкаджийство."

"Още по-рядко пък се намират къщи с бани, защото тук банята се смята за опасно сатанинско изобретение. За местните селяни банята е нещо, което понякога си принуден да вземаш по лекарско предписание или като профилактична мярка, но не и нуждите на личната хигиена - подобна идея още не е стигнала до селските умове."

И май с това се изчерпва всичко интересно в този пътепис. Изключвайки някои свежи проблясъци тук там, като цяло скучна книга. Отегчителна също. Почти през цялото време имах усещане за отегчението с което авторът е писал този пътепис, някак си като по задължение. Трите звезди са постигането на непостижимото - толкова качествено пишещ творец, да успее да създаде толкова сива творба.

[Arup Guha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reflective, dreamy travelogue written not by a travel writer but by a poet and novelist. The literary quotient is high. Some of the lines read more like poetry than prose. I actually re-read the book 2-3 times because some of the portions were so wonderful to read. The descriptions of the karaghiosis performance and the annual wine making at the count's house were worth many re-reads. The count dominated the second part of the book and some of his reflections can seem opaque, as they should be, being personal reflections of a cultured and complex man. The book ends as the war begins and we are informed of the loss of the white house and the boats, settings and sources of many delights described in the book. But the island endures, so does its beauty. "Visited by the lowland summer mists the trembling landscapes must still lie throughout the long afternoon..." as the author mentions and longs for at the very end. Laurence felt he couldn't do justice to this landscape, to this history, this ancient way of life, this wonderful reflective dream in a few hastily written pages that he put together after having fled the island to Alexandria. But we get the essence, Corfu is the leisure that every cultured soul deserves, the paradise he can aspire to, secure in the thought that the little island awaits unspoiled at the end of every humdrum commonplace life.

[Carmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partly a diary of his time in Corfu with his eclectic and eccentric collection of Greek friends, partly a history of this fascinating island and partly a poetic homage to a beautiful part of the world, Prospero's Cell is an evocation of the largest of the Ionian Islands. From the times of Ancient Greece, when Odysseus allegedly fled to the island to the late 1930s when this book was written, with the looming world war bringing menace to paradise, Durrell skips back and forth in time, telling various stories which eventually make up a rich picture. Reading the book while on the island itself was an absolute joy, as so much of the geography, architecture and indeed ways of life of the island's people remains as it was when Durrell was writing. More literary and poetic than his brother Gerald, whose accessible and entertaining My Family and Other Animals is also set here, this was a fantastic and enjoyable introduction to Lawrence Durrell's writing for me, and I'm keen to follow it up with his celebrated Alexandria Quartet.

[Lucynell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feeling very ambiguous about this slim part-memoir part-travelogue by Lawrence Durrell. Clarity, I think, is the issue here. Though the author relishes in attractive poetic form, whether describing people or places, the weather even, I felt as stumbling on air. Not a nice feeling. I believe I've come across books like this one before, very sophisticated stuff, often beautiful, usually confusing. A better reader will enjoy this much more than I did.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Durrell's prose is pure magic. Vivid yet subtle, it flirts with the Baroque without ever breaking the spell it casts on the reader.
This is seductive travel writing at its finest.
Particularly well done is the balance between descriptive prose and historical detail in order to bring the island to life out of a colourful past and into an uncertain present. The final note is a bitter sweet one, layered with nostalgia...

[Alex.Rosetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What more does a man want than an olive tree, a native island and a woman from his own place?"

[Vesna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explicit, romantic and absolutely Greece. Its a painting in words!
One can read it and read again.