Half the Perfect World: Writers, Dreamers and Drifters on Hydra, 1955–1964

by Tanya Dalziell, Tanya Dalziell

Half the Perfect World is an account of the expatriate artist community on the Greek island of Hydra from 1955 to 1964. Fostered by celebrated Australian literary couple Charmian Clift and George Johnston, this fabled 'colony' came to include Leonard Cohen and numerous other writers and artists. What brought this group to Hydra? What does their story reveal about the post-war world? Looking at the Hydra expatriates through their writing, letters, diaries, and photographs, Genoni and Dalziell identify a deep restlessness within a rapidly changing time of emerging social movements and counter-cultures, shifting geo-political realities, incipient pop-cultures, new technologies of communication and entertainment, and altered understandings of what it meant to live as an expatriate artist.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Greece, History

456 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2018

Reviews

[T.D. Whittle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The polished hill
The milky town
Transparent, weightless, luminous
Uncovering the two of us
On that fundamental ground
Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound
And half the perfect world is found
~Leonard Cohen / Anjani Thomas 'Half the Perfect World' (Preface)

I read Half the Perfect World as a complement to Charmian Clift's Mermaids Singing Peel Me A Lotus which I discuss here.

I enjoyed this book but found this comment by folklorist Steve Sanfield struck a chord with my own overall impression of the bohemian ex-pats, including Clift and Johnston, who called Hydra home for a while during the decade of the mid fifties to the mid sixties:

Most of the foreigners here claim they have come to this island to get away from certain aspects of Western society―specifically things like social status, morality codes, and other people's opinions. But it is these very things they have brought with them. They have set up a status structure with all its inherent pressures that is dangerous to live in as anywhere in America or England―only here it's much more obvious, since everything seems to be magnified on the island. And the most absurd aspect of the whole thing is that these people continue to pat themselves on the back for having the courage to leave all that behind.

Well, I don't know that it's true the ex-pats carried their morality code with them, or at least not the version they felt obliged to follow back in Australia or England, but the observation is otherwise how I was thinking as I read the book. Regarding morality codes: The sexual expressiveness amongst the ex-pats on Hydra would have been considered scandalous back home, and perhaps wrecked their reputations amongst folks whose patronage they relied upon. (Indeed, much of their behaviour scandalised the conservative, Orthodox Greeks and sometimes got people kicked off the island.* )

That said, Clift and Johnston were used to scandal, having had an affair back in Melbourne when they first met whilst working at the Argus newspaper; at the time, Johnston was already married with a young child. Clift had lost her job and Johnston threatened to quit if she were not rehired, thinking that his success as a journalist would be enough to make the owners want to hold on to him. That backfired, which is how Clift and Johnston ended up moving to London and from London to Greece.

The oft-repeated-but-ever-true theme here: Wherever you go, there you are. Clift and Johnston were both very intelligent and gregarious, with strong personalities. Their successful professional collaborations did not override their competitiveness with each other. In Half the Perfect World, the people who knew them back then reported that they fought often and loudly and consumed enormous amounts of alcohol. But that, of course, was not all there was to them! Like many artists and intellectuals, they were complicated.

George was apparently a fantastic story-teller who loved to entertain his friends with a good yarn. Though often in debt himself, he was generous to a fault and would give away their last drachma to help a friend. The couple had a reputation for kindness and generosity, opening their home as hosts to many members of their community as well as occasional tourists. I also got the impression that they were lovely parents to their three children, and they seemed to care deeply about their Greek friends and those who worked for them in their home.

However, it seems to me that despite Clift's rhapsodic writing on the beauty of her family's life in Greece, the truth is that her marriage did not survive the experience―perhaps due to both Clift's and Johnston's alcoholism (which Clift glosses over in her memoirs but which was obvious and much discussed among their peers), but perhaps also due to their inability to handle a life lived so intensely, at close quarters and often in extreme conditions, over an extended period of time.

Clift killed herself a few years after moving back to Sydney, on 8 July 1969, the eve of the publication of Johnston's novel Clean Straw for Nothing. In her posthumously published article 'My Husband George' (July edition of POL Magazine), she wrote:

I do believe that novelists must be free to write what they like, in any way they liked to write it (and after all who but myself had urged and nagged him into it?), but the stuff of which Clean Straw for Nothing is made is largely experience in which I, too, have shared and . . . have felt differently because I am a different person. (Wikipedia: Charmian Clift)

Only a year after Clift's suicide, Johnston died of tuberculosis, which he had contracted while living on the islands.

Clift and Johnston were a brilliant and fascinating couple, and it's tragic how their lives played out. I am glad to have learnt a bit more about them through this book, which I found interesting, too, because of the other ex-pats who are discussed: Leonard Cohen, Australian painter Sidney Nolan, Scandinavian novelists Axel Jensen and Göran Tunström, et al. If you have an interest in artistic ex-pat communities of this era, or any of these people in particular, Half the Perfect World is worth a read.

We had escaped our societies. Nobody was watching us. We could be free, we could behave as we liked. We had found the meaning of our existence. The real meaning of existence was there all the time of course, in the simple pattern of the island which we had annexed as our own primitive milieu, but after a time we could not see it for the mired footprints of our own excesses. (Preface)

* Someone asked what one would have to do to get kicked off a Greek island, which is a very good question: back then, not much! All you had to do was be too sexy, it seems. One young man who was way too sexy for any shirt at all would wander about half-dressed, picking out women to sleep with, and leave the others swooning in their wake. (He was French, of course ;) The Greek peasants at this time were very conservative and deeply religious. They were also very concerned that their daughters not be compromised before marriage, which was arranged by the parents and elders. So, while Americans, Australians, and the British were using European islands for romantic adventures and escapades, they loosened the moral conventions of home that they viewed as oppressive, boring, and bourgeois. Opportunities for affairs were ample and the wine poured freely, down the throats of a crowd already drunk on sea and sun and ancient history. (Also, for some folks, simply behaving naturally in their sexuality was illegal. Leaving home was an escape from this oppression and fear of persecution.)

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

An exhaustively researched and very considered approach to the fabled Hydra community, but which can’t quite decide on its audience! There’s a distracting and irritating overall busyness in evidence, whether it’s revisiting themes already covered adequately, forensic dissection of the many (marvellous) photographs that speak for themselves or just an overly academic handling of the entire subject matter.

Dalziell’s quiet and sympathetic analyses of her subjects and their work are in evidence throughout and one of the great strengths of ‘Half the Perfect World,’ as are the many lesser-known sources that enrich the text and are put to full use by the authors.

But, overall, the sheer mire of material and its treatment makes for a claustrophobic reading experience and I, like many who eventually moved on from the island, am happy to finally close the back cover, write this review and immerse myself once again in Clift and Johnston’s work plus track down many of the excellent reference works in Dalziell and Genoni’s bibliography.

[Cat Woods · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent, though not flawless, reflection on the artists and journalists who expatriated to Hydra in the 1950s and 60s.

As a devoted reader of Charmian Clift's autobiographical books based on her time as an expatriate woman, journalist, wife and mother on Hydra, I was curious to read an outsider account of her time on the island. The primary focus is on Clift and Johnston, her journalist and war correspondent husband as they were the original Australian expats to set up house on Hydra before being joined by international artists and writers.

While the stories are backed up by photographs and accounts, via novels and letters of associates, there is a slightly uncomfortable level of speculation as to the motives, agendas and feelings of Johnston and Clift in particular. As a reader of both Peel Me A Lotus and Mermaid Singing, I felt the speculation around Clift in particular was not necessarily accurate or fair. Having read much about her, especially in Nadia Wheatley's acclaimed biography, I had really wanted to know more about what lead this astonishing woman to kill herself upon return to Australia in the late 60s. This was summed up briefly in an almost rushed, tacked on few pages at the finale of the book. What a travesty. To sum up her life and her children and husband's as tragic and ended by alcohol and misery is a huge injustice to the enormity of each of their lives and their various artistic and personal achievements. Certainly, Martin was a skilled and celebrated poet and Johnston wrote many books as well as his skilled war correspondence.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Clift, Johnston and Cohen, this will be a wonderful introduction but for those with a particular interest in Clift, I recommend Wheatley's more in-depth exploration of an artistic life ended prematurely.

[Kate Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been interested in the life of Charmain Clift ever since my aunt gave me her memoir, Mermaid Singing, for my birthday in 1994.



Charmain Clift and her writer-husband, George Johnston, took their young family to live on the Greek island of Hydra in the ‘50s, and became the epicentre of a group of other writers, artists and musicians whose lives and loves ebbed and flowed like the tides of the wine-dark sea. George Johnston wrote My Brother Jack on Hydra, and returned to Australia after it was published to much acclaim in 1964. It won the Miles Franklin award the following year.



I’ve read numerous books about their lives on Hydra since, but this is one of the most interesting.



Firstly, because it does not focus only on the tumultuous marriage and literary careers of Charmain Clift and George Johnston, but also looks at the lives of many of the other creative artists who ended up in Hydra, including singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and his partner Marianne Ihlen. I was not familiar with their story and found it fascinating and illuminating. It also has a lot of fresh material like letters and diaries which I found really added to the book’s depth.



Secondly, the book is beautifully illustrated with photographs taken by LIFE magazine photo-journalist James Burke. These images gave me such an intimate and revealing look into every-day life on Hydra. Loved it!

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched, written in an engaging style, and beautifully illustrated with photos by LIFE photographer James Burke. Genoni and Dalziel have produced a terrific scholarly work that is also a great read.

I’ve always been fascinated by the creative expats/Greek islands genre and stories of 1950s/1960s bohemia. It’s wonderful to learn more of the back story of favourite authors George Johnston, Charmain Clift and Leonard Cohen.

I would also recommend the documentary film “Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love” - by British filmmaker Nick Broomfield - an excellent film covering the story of the love affair between Marianne Ihlen and Leonard Cohen, which include some wonderful original footage of expat life on Hydra.

[Mark Latchford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any book that returns the spot light on George Johnston and Charmaine Clift gets my attention. The expose on that supposed halcyon time on Hydra where G and C hung out Leonard Cohen the Nolan’s and others is a welcome contribution to the history of two great Australian writers. The extensive use of photos bring the island to life. It can be a little ponderous as it goes over each cafe and bar frequented or unravels yet another island affair and the authors try too hard to be insightful academics rather then storytellers first and foremost. Now planning a trip to Hydra ...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - 4!

[Jim Happ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. We've been to the Greek islands, so the image and feel of the place comes through. The difficulty of survival as a freelance author (with a family to support) is brought home, and you can't help feeling for the suffering of any artist who is passionate about their work, to the extent of starving for it. Not for me, I'm more comfortable having a 9-to-5 job at a big corporation -- but then I don't have Charmian or George's writing talents. The number of pretenders, leeches and phony people encountered on these "artist colonies" is not surprising. I still can't see what people love about Leonard Cohen; he may write some good songs, but is a lousy singer; kd lang does a much better job with his songs. Re-read George Johnston's books "My Brother Jack", "Clean Straw for Nothing", and "A Cartload of Clay after this book. Then into Charmian Clift's books about being on the Greek Islands -- "Mermaid Singing", "Peel me a lotus". I found Charmian's style more intimate, revealing and tolerant of the culture shock for an Australian with liberal attitudes going into a much more traditional, straight-laced religious community such as Greece. George whines too much -- "woe is me"; Charmian is more accepting and loving -- comes with being a mum?

[Sharon Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a conventional biography of George Johnston and Charmian Clift, but rather, the story of an idyll and a dream.

Johnston and Clift, both journalists, married after conducting an affair which scandalized their employer (the Argus newspaper) and got them both sacked! Johnston was still married to his first wife and it was just too much for Australian society at that time. After living and working – quite productively, as journalists – in London, they decided to move to a place where they could escape from city life and its pressures and just write.

After a spell on Kalymnos, they discovered the relatively unspoiled island of Hydra and decided it would suit their purposes. They bought a house, which became known locally as the “Australian house”, and proceeded to establish themselves as the King and Queen of the expatriate community. Among these, of course, was someone whose reputation was to totally eclipse theirs – Leonard Cohen. It was on Hydra that Cohen met his great love Marianne Ihlen and today, if Hydra is famous for anything, it is Leonard Cohen, not the Johnstons. It should be noted, however, that Cohen himself paid tribute to them:

"They had a larger-than-life, a mythical quality. They drank more than other people, they wrote more, they got sick more, they got well more, they cursed more and they blessed more, and helped a great deal more. They were an inspiration. They had guts. They were real, tough, honest. They were the kind of people you meet less and less."

Both wrote prolifically, so they were quite optimistic that this move would result in a pleasing lifestyle, admirable works and financial security. Sadly, things didn’t work out as they’d hoped. The difficulties of raising three children and the persistent lack of financial reward from their work placed their marriage under great strain. They drank too much and, although they gave help and hospitality to visitors, often putting them up in their own house, their very public and noisy arguments eventually alienated even their closest friends.

The title of the book comes from a song by Leonard Cohen about two lovers who find, together, “half the perfect world”. It is partially quoted in the Preface, along with a quote from Johnston’s Clean Straw for Nothing:

"We had escaped our societies. Nobody was watching us. We could be free, we could behave as we liked. We had found the meaning of our existence. The real meaning of existence was there all the time of course, in the simple pattern of the island which we had annexed as our own primitive milieu, but after a time we could not see it for the mired footprints of our own excesses."

It was the Johnstons’ “excesses” – drinking, adulterous affairs, public rows – that ultimately brought them undone. To add insult to injury, the world outside Hydra was changing: a new generation was emerging into young adulthood and tourism, in some of its ugliest forms, was accelerating. Hydra was unable to fully resist this tide of change.

The book is largely told in quotations and photographs. The main works, which are quoted extensively, are an unfinished novel by Redmond Wallis, called The Unyielding Memory and Charmian Clift’s 1959 memoir, Peel Me a Lotus. Although other photographers are included, the main photos are by Johnston’s friend James Burke, who sought to document the life lived on Hydra by Johnston, Clift, Cohen and the many others who visited, lived there as fellow-expatriates or came as tourists, stayed a short time, and moved on.

The authors have high praise for Burke’s photographs, all in black and white, but I’m afraid I found a lot of them little better than happy snaps. Many show people’s faces in shadow, crowd too many people into the frame or obscure them, often by other people leaning across them. They are all, however, meticulously identified. There is a section of plates, some in colour, including an impression of Hydra’s harbour by Sidney Nolan, also a friend of Johnston and Clift. Another depicts a painting by the artist Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika in quite a different style, of his studio. Portraits of the two artists are included, above their works. There is also a plate featuring the covers of four novels, one each by Johnston, Clift, Axel Jensen (the husband of Marianne Ihlen) and Redmond Wallis.

It was the successful publication of George Johnston’s My Brother Jack – with its cover design by Sidney Nolan – which caused them to leave Hydra and return to Australia. This book caused quite a stir when it appeared, in 1964 – I remember reading and loving it – and it won the Miles Franklin Award, cementing George Johnston’s place in Australian literature. Sadly, Johnston’s health was failing (he died of tuberculosis in 1970) and neither Clift nor her children fully came to terms with life back in Australia.

The ending to their story is less fulfilling than it should have been, but this couple nonetheless were brave enough to reject the comforts of regular work in order to pursue their dreams – and they even, if partially and at great cost, succeeded.

[Hazel Edwards · Rating 2 out of 5]

The one chapter on their writing methods is insightful, but the lists of names of island visitors elsewhere tend to get wearying. Rather repetitive and reads like an undigested Phd. rather than considering the mainstream reader. Interesting photos.


.

[Tam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Warrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The real hero of this quiet, understated, handsome, weighty book is the photography of James Burke, who took his photo journalist skills to Hydra in the 60s, capturing George Johnson, Charmian Clift, Leonard Cohen, and others, in their new and beautiful environment. His wonderful photographs are presented generously throughout the text and indeed seem to drive some of the narrative.

The actual purpose of this book is less clear. I imagined it was going to be about George Johnson and Charmian and Clift's relationship on Hydra, and it partly is, but is as much a history of Hydra itself as an island, as part of Greece, and then through the early 1960s as a kind of counter cultural icon for international expats, and 'takes Johnston and Clift's arrival on Hydra in August 1955, as a transitional moment in the development of the islands, expatriate artist community'.

That it sometimes feels like a transformed thesis from a couple of academics and at others as gossipy and introspective and claustrophobic as it must have felt for those living in such close quarters as aliens on a foreign shore, does not detract from this text. If you admire George Johnston's 'My Brother Jack' trilogy, as I do, then this is well worth exploring and sits alongside Johnston's work and Clift's 'Peel Me a Lotus' as indispensable background reading.

It seems clear that Johnston needed to leave Australia to write his great novel about Australia and that thus this little, beautiful Greek island is significant in the history of Australian literature.

[indy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hazel Edwards astutely observed that Half the Perfect World is "repetitive" and "reads like an undigested PhD". The Preface and Introduction are particularly tedious, riddled with groan-worthy reiterations of the "half the perfect world" phrase (and variants), like a kid showing off in an essay. Mercifully the book gains momentum in the first chapter and shrugs off some (but not all) of the ivory tower navel-gazing. The remaining text is sometimes dry and overly academic, oddly naïve at times, but peppered with just enough interesting anecdotes and observations that one is willing enough to keep reading. The tale of Sam Barclay's ship Stormie Seas was entertaining, but I wonder at the explanations for its original design and its connections with MI6 and the CIA. I suspect Barclay and the government agencies were in cahoots long before the Greek money supposedly dried up.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

So glad to have read this book. Covering artists and writers who moved to Hydra in the 50s and early 60s with great photos by James Burke, a life photo journalist of the time, it investigates what drew them to the island and then their life once they arrived.the groups they formed are documented using material from Burke’s photos , never published but available from the Life archives. A worthy winner of the Prime Minister’s literary prize for non fiction in 2019. For me most interest was in the life and work of Charmian Clift and Georg Johnston and Clift wrote The Lotus Eaters and others there and Johnston wrote My Brother Jack on the island. Key other participants were Sydney Nolan and Leonard Cohen with Marianne as well. The writers catalogue the challenges of life on a primitive island as well as the enormous potential of moving to such a community.

[Heather Boundy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since reading Peel me a Lotus (Clift) and Clean Straw for Nothing (Johnson) in the sixties I have had a fascination with their lives and especially their decision to move, with their small children, to the Greek island of Hydra in the late fifties. It seemed such a romantic ideal but reading Genoni and Dalziell's book has peeled back the highlights to reveal many of the truths of the lifestyle there in this heyday for the island. The expat community included the likes of Leonard Cohen and Mungo Maccallum plus an assortment of artists and writers - some more well-known than others. Free thinking and living and a high level of alcoholism colored the lives of these disparate people, and in the end I wondered if it had all been worth it. Though money was always short there seems so be enough to purchase souses, drink copious amounts of wine and bask in the sun. Heady days indeed!

[Iwona Elder]

Excellent book that gives details of all the major personalities living on Hydra between 1956 and 1964. A lot of information about George Johnston and Charmian Clift, as well as the other faces like Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, Axel Jensen , the Nolans, Mungo MacCallum, Redmond Wallis, the and many more.
It provides a wonderful backdrop to the Island before it was changed by the advent of tourism and many pilgrimages to the places where Leonard Cohen and the Johnstons spent a significant creative time. There are numerous photographs , many taken by James Burke who cataloged the life and people of Hydra.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been interested in Hydra and its ex-pat community for a while and, for that reason, enjoyed this book. The intro is much more scholarly than the rest of the book but parts still read like a textbook (oddly with no footnotes). I think the book's best feature was the many many photographs placed appropriately throughout the text.

[Carofish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This in an interesting account of those living on Hydra between 1955 and 1964, including Leonard Cohen. It got a little boring because you were aware there were underlying tensions that really weren’t fleshed out. However, it’s a very interesting account of the mystique of this beautiful island

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting telling of the day to day life of Charmian Clift and George Johnston while on the Greek island of Hydra (1955-1964). There is a lot of coming and going of creative people to the island and their interaction with Clift and Johnston. Many photos scattered throughout the book.

[Anne Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderful period with interesting artists on an idyllic island

[Richard Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book captures that time in Greece perfectly. At times I would put it aside and find it difficult to get back into the present time and place. It is a completely intriguing tale on many levels.

[Suz Bennett]

An academic study of the writers on Hydra. Found somewhat repetitive . Still enamoured of their bravery to move there with family and so little money. Wish I was that brave oh and had their talent!