Greece with its superb beaches and incredible history has fuelled the imagination of many poets and writers from Lord Byron to Henry Miller. Indeed, there’s no shortage of literature for an intellectual journey across the country. Here’s a brief list of travel books written by foreigners about Greece.

HYDRA

Roger Green’s “Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen”

On September 27, 1960 – six days after Leonard Cohen turned 26 – he used a $1,500 bequest left to him by his deceased grandmother to buy a house on the island of Hydra. The famous singer discovered the Greek way of life and knew he had been accepted by the community when the garbage man and his donkey began to pay regular visitors. The balladeer says he never regretted his years on the island. Years later, English poet Roger Green moved to Hydra and bought a house with a terrace that overlooked Cohen’s garden. Before he knew it he was obsessed by the singer who once lived next door. The tale begins as a poetic meditation upon Leonard Cohen’s bananas and goes on a pilgrimage with various twists and turns.

Quote: “Plenty of people have remarked upon the Southy honesty of the Greek light, and some have cynically noted that not all Greek citizens reflect this honesty. Where L., it seems to me, is original is in his second sentence. As I understand it, he is saying that loafing souls can’t be bothered to betray themselves intellectually. You can lie here; you can be unfaithful; you can cheat others; but you can’t betray yourself.”

CEPHALONIA

Louis de Berniere’s “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”

Set in the early days of WW2, before Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Greece. Dr. Iannis practices medicine, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia. The intelligent young girl is betrothed to Mandras who disappears into the war, but she no long loves him when he returns with the brutality of the Communist resistance having changed him forever. Instead, the young girl is captivated by the sensitive mandolin-playing captain of the benevolent Italian occupation. Beyond being a simple love story, the tale shows how a fiercely proud community rebels in the small ways it can. Running throughout the novel is a Homeric theme imbued with tenderness and wit. The book was later made a film starring Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz.

Quote: “I know you have not thought about it. Italians always act without thinking, it’s the glory and the downfall of your civilisation. A German plans a month in advance what his bowel movements will be at Easter, and the British plan everything in retrospect, so it always looks as though everything occurred as they intended. The French plan everything whilst appearing to be having a party, and the Spanish…well, God knows. Anyway, Pelagia is Greek, that’s my point.”

CRETE

Victoria Hislop’s “The Island”

Set on the island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, and on the village of Plaka which lies within swimming distance across it, The Island tells the story of Alexis Fielding, a 25 year old on the cusp of a life-changing decision. Alexis knows little or nothing about her family’s past and has always resented her mother for refusing to discuss it. She knows only that her mother, Sofia, grew up in Plaka, a small Cretan village, before moving to London. Making her first visit to Crete to see the village where her mother was born, Alexis discovers that the village of Plaka faces the small, now deserted island of Spinalonga, which, she is shocked and surprised to learn was Greece’s leper colony for much of the 20th century. It is here that Alexis meets an old friend of her mother’s, Fotini, who is prepared to tell her for the first time the whole tragic story of her family. What Fotini tells her is shocking and tragic, it is the story which Sofia has spent her life concealing: the story of Eleni, her grandmother, and of a family torn apart by tragedy, war and passion. Eleni has two children, called Maria and Anna with her husband Georgio. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island and with the horror and pity of the leper colony which was once there, and learns too that the secrets of the past have the power to change the future.

Quote: “After the endless disappointing cups of Nescafé, served as though the tasteless dissolving granules of instant coffee were a delicacy, Alexis felt no cup of coffee had ever tasted as powerful and delicious as this.
It seemed that nobody had the heart to tell the Greeks that Nescafé was no longer a novelty – it was this old-fashioned thick and treacly fluid that everyone, including her, craved.”

LINDOS

Willard Manus’ “This Way to Paradise – Dancing on the Tables”

The novel is set in the sun-drenched, history-laden Greek island village of Lindos and is a memoir dealing with the 25 years that American novelist Willard Manus and his Scottish wife Mavis spent there. Written in a warm, exuberant style, the book paints a vivid picture of life in the village: learning the language, raising and educating two children, buying and restoring a 17th century Knights of St. John house, surviving as a freelance writer. Its 354 pages are packed with portraits of the people they met in Lindos, the Greeks and foreigners who helped put the village on the traveler’s map and transformed it from a remote, primitive artist’s colony to a major Aegean tourist center. Among the personages are the Pink Floyd band, S.J. Perelman, Germaine Greer, Martha Gellhorn, Nicol Williamson and R.D. Laing. Manus is also the author of “Mott the Hoople”, the novel from which the Seventies British rock band took its name.

Quote: “I found myself spending a lot of time with the Lindian fishermen. They were a salty, profane bunch, the most colorful characters in the village, especially the older ones who had sailed under canvas in the 20’s and 30’s. Many had been captains of three-masted schooners which crisscrossed the Aegean bound for such ports of call as izmir, Kyrenia and Beirut.”

MAROUSSI

Henry Miller’s “The Colossus of Maroussi”

As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Henry Miller travelled to Greece after accepting an invitation from his friend, writer Lawrence Durrell. The impressionist travelogue inspired by this trip was written in 1939 and first published in 1941 and is ostensibly a portrait of Greek writer George Katsimbalis but more likely a self-portrait of Miller himself. In the tale, he uses the fabric of Greek life to weave a story of mankind. The book is a compelling paean to the Greek spirit!

Quote: “…Suddenly I realized that we were sailing through the streets.If there is one dream which I like above others is that of sailing on land.Coming into Paros gives the illusion of the deep dream.
Suddenly the land converges on all sides and the boat is squeezed into a narrow strait from which there seems to be no egress.The men and the women of Paros are hanging out of the windows just above your head.You pull in right under their friendly nostrils,as though for a shave and haircut en route.The loungeres on the quay are walking with the same speed as the boat; they can walk faster than the boat of they choose to quicken their pace.The island revolves in cubistic planes,one of walls and windows, one of rocks and goats, one of stiff-blown trees and shrubs and so on.…The sail slowly through the streets of Paros is to recapture the joy of passing through the neck of the womb.”

PAXOS

Peter Bull’s “It Isn’t all Greek to Me”

The book is a fascinating insight into the island of Paxos from the Sixties when the author bought a fabulous plot of land for only 40 pounds. The book is embellished with lovely line drawings by Oscar winner Robert Furse. Read the book and then go to Paxos and find the house.

OTHER READS
* Mary Renault’s “The Last of Wine” gives a dose of ancient Greek history as well as literature.
* Loretta Proctor’s “The Long Shadow” is filled with descriptions of Greece and its people with dramatic images of battle and the terrible conditions endured by the allied armies around Thessaloniki.
* Sophia Zinovieff’s “Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens” is a literary guidebook to Athens.
* Serena Hale’s “Across the Water in Tenedos” is focuses on the tenants of three villas on the beautiful island of Kalymnos whose lives are interweived.
* E.J. Knapp’s “Stealing the Marbles” focuses on the controversy caused when Lord Elgin stole pieces of the Parthenon Marbles and shipped them to England. Danny Samsel, the hero of the book, steals back the marbles to right an international wrong.
* Edmund Keeley’s memoir “Inventing Paradise” is part cultural history and part literary criticism.
* Tom Stone’s “The Summer of My Greek Taverna: A Memoir” is set in Patmos during the early Eighties and gives a cautionary tale about innocents abroad doing business in a closed community.