Customer Reviews

Between the Woods and the Water

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a restless young man in the 1930s, Patrick Leigh Fermor made a trip on foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. As an older man, he returned to his diaries and wrote the account of his journey. This second of the series takes us from Budapest across the Hungarian plain and through the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania. It is much more than a travelogue, however: the book contains a unique glimpse into the lives of the declining Hungarian aristocracy after WWI. It is rich with historical background brought to life. Most rewarding of all is the evocative portrayal by a man whose life is mostly behind him man reliving with vivid eloquence those early revelations which stamped his way of being. Embedded in all the picaresque detail is a love story which rings as true as Shakespeare.

I can only echo the thoughts of the other reviewers and would urge the publishers to reissue this book and its companion, A Time of Gifts, that relates the adventures and thoughts of the mature author on his youthful odyssey. I also have a question for the publisher and the author. The author planned a third and final volume to go from the Iron Gates to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Is there still hope that we can be delighted by the language, insight, and wonder of the author on this last leg of a remarkable journey

The book opens with the author as a young man setting out from the small town of Estergom in Hungary in 1934 on a journey which will take him through the sweeping vistas of the Great Hungarian Plain, the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania. Descriptions of such places is only rivalled by the brilliant characterisation lent to the protagonists throughout. Added to this is the poignant reminder that so much of this was to be destroyed by the occupying Nazi forces only a few years later. The variety of experiences written with supremely masterful imagery makes this book a must for those who have an interest in this part of Europe.

Fermor's second installment of his trilogy (I assume the third volume remains unfinished?) focuses on Hungary and Transylvania, and is an easier read than his first volume that described largely the German/Austrian stint of his long hike/hitchhike. I encountered fewer characters this time, due to his longer stays with people, and, as Fermor admits, he tended to keep to the company of the gentry more than the peasants and Gypsies he originally anticipated.

As in the first volume, vignettes stand out: he nevertheless manages to find a Gypsy encampment, Hasidim among lumberjacks deep in the Carpathians, a count who mutters in language out of Robbie Burns about his butterfly collection, and the romance with Angela, discreetly but poignantly narrated. My favorite scene is just before his great romance, when a briefer "roll in the hay" becomes exactly that in the company of Safta and Ileana.

Fermor's allusions to his later Crete exploits are tempting--I only wish he had had time to related these too in more detail. His comparisons to 1980s Europe and what transpired to some of his friends later on make for thoughtful and instructive entertainment--the mark of the best writing.

Fermor traveled by foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantiople; this book is the second volume of his remembrances of that trip, starting off halfway through the journey at Budapest (where the previous volume, A Time of Gifts, left off). Oh, wait, I didn't mention that he made this trip in 1934 when he was 18. The book is an incredibly dense package of flora and fauna, history and action, characters and settings. For someone as unfamiliar as I about this area, it provided a crash course in providing for an understanding of the region.