It was the day before we were leaving for a vacation to Mexico and my husband, Don, realized the e-book he was currently reading wouldn't last him for a whole week of resort-living. He asked if I had any good books lying around the house that he might like. I shoved Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières into his hands. So what if the book, one of my favorites, was published in 1994? As Ann Patchett reminds her readers, "If you haven't read it, it's new to you." After a week in Mexico, Don hadn't made much progress so we found the audiobook at our library. From that point forward he consumed the book by reading a few pages in bed each night and listening to most of the book in his truck as he ran errands around town during the day. If I was with him in the vehicle, which was often, I would join him in listening and was immediately reminded how much I liked this story. At one point, let's say about 100 pages in, he turned to me and asked why I hadn't recommended the book to him before. Clearly he was enjoying it a lot. I reminded him that I first read Corelli's Mandolin in 1995, long before I was in the habit of making reading suggestions to him...and everyone else.
The story is set on Cephalonia, a Greek Island, and though it covers a timeline of fifty years, the majority of the story takes place during the years of WWII occupation, first by the Italians and then by the Germans. Nicci Gerrard, writing a review for The Guardian newspaper in April 1994, describes the book this way:
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is an emotional, funny, stunning novel which swings with wide smoothness between joy and bleakness, personal lives and history, between an hour-by-hour narrative riddled with meals and walks and cuffs and courtship and a decade-by-decade sweep through the years. It's lyrical and angry, satirical and earnest.
The book is full of a cast of quirky characters. beginning with Dr. Iannis and his daughter Pelagia. He is the only doctor on the island and also a wannabe historian, painstakingly writing out the history of Cephalonia from ancient to modern times. Pelagia, the heroine of the story, wants to be a doctor like her father despite that being nearly impossible for a woman of the time. She falls in love with a local fisherman, Mandras, who is a sweet and gentle boy who often swims with dolphins. The two get engaged just a few days before he is drafted and sent off to fight in the Greek army. When he returns home a year later, he is not the same person, changed forever by the horrors of war. When the Italian army arrives to occupy the island, their commander is Captain Antonio Corelli. He is not a stereotypical army officer. His first love is music and his mandolin. Soon after arriving on the island he organizes a group of a cappella singers from his garrison. The men all sing together each morning as they are pooping in the open latrine. When a German officer greets him with the traditional "Heil Hitler," Corelli salutes back with a "Heil, Puccini." Clearly he is more of a clown than a serious fascist. When Corelli is billeted with Dr. Iannis and his daughter, his aide Carlo Guercio, his loyal sergeant, picks up the captain everyday in the jeep and runs interference for him. Carlo is a huge Italian man carrying an equally huge secret inside him. Early in the story Carlo philosophizes that the history of war is "the propaganda of the victors, when it should consist of the anecdotes of the little people who get caught up in it."
After Mandras disappears to fight with other Greek partisans, Pelagia finds her heart turning toward Antonio Corelli, wooed initially by the beautiful music he makes on his mandolin. Their love story is both funny and sweet, one only possible during the time of war. The Italians and Greeks got on very well especially considering one was the conqueror and the other the conquered. Friendships and love affairs sprung up all over the island. These relationships, especially between Pelagia and Antonio, greatly interested me the first time I read the book not long after it was published in 1994.
This time around, however, I found my interest captured by what I called the interlude chapters -- chapters which explored a theme, like the church or Il Duce, in depth. The chapter, "A Pamphlet Distributed on the Island, Entitled with the Fascist Slogan 'Believe, Fight, Obey'," was especially fascinating to me because it outlined the life of Benito Mussolini and what a terrible person he was even before he became head of the Fascist party in Italy. As we listened, Don turned to me and asked if it reminded me of of anyone today? Could it be Trump? The similarities were both gauling and frightening.
I asked Don if he would write a brief review of Corelli's Mandolin for this post. He, after all, read the whole thing and I only got snapshots of the book this time around (and the bonus -- he is a very good writer!)
-Anne
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"War is hell." -- General William Tecumseh Sherman
"War is the continuation of politics by other means." -- Carl von Clausewitz
Many descriptions of war have been attempted through the ages. Louis de Bernières' Corelli's Mandolin may have added several more, but most poignantly he captures the complex human experience that war is being trapped in circumstances beyond the immediate control of the people most directly affected. As a retired Army officer and veteran of a deployment to Iraq, I will say that most soldiers don't gleefully go into combat zones to advance righteous values, in defense of hearth and home, or out of allegiance to the flag on their uniform. Rather, they have sworn an obligation to serve and -- as part of a team -- they will fight for the men and women by their side so that everyone can go home when it's over. In Corelli's Mandolin, we encounter soldiers from Italy, Germany, Albania, Greece, and Great Britain all caught up in the dire consequences of political aspirations and failures, while just trying to survive and find some joy and beauty in the middle of the ugliness.
As the narrative shifts between the various central characters, each wrestles with the consequences of their initially noble decisions (caring for a widowed father, joining the army, opposing the monarchy, etc.) as the world serves up unimaginable grief, deprivation, and isolation. And in the middle of all this misery, we have the delightful, yet agonizing love story of Corelli, the musical Italian army officer, and the Greek doctor's daughter, Pelagia. Clinging to hope of all the good times that will come "after the war", the two manage to grow deeper in love despite the odds being severely against them.
Many years ago when Anne first read Corelli's Mandolin, she copied this passage in a Valentine's Day card to me:
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that is is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passions. ...That is just being "in love," which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found we were one tree and not two.
I was part of the way through the book, when I happened upon that card and recalled the many times we have mentioned how entwined our roots have become over the 45 years we've been together. When I reached this passage in the book as Dr. Iannes describes the difference between being in love and real, lasting love, I was reminded again of our fortunate accident.
Reading Corelli's Mandolin after all these years gave me new insights about the occupation of Greece during WWII. But more, I got an important reminder that in the midst of any and all circumstances, the best thing you can do is choose love.
-- Don
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