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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Travel writing with teeth,
By W. Weinstein "William Weinstein" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bitter Lemons (Paperback)
Forget all those insipid Peter Mayle books and the myriad imitations that they spawned. This is the real thing; a book about settling in a new country, buying a house (the funniest chapter in the book) and the slow realisation that, politically, the situation is becoming untenable. Bitter Lemons, which starts off so optimistically, is a sad commentary on the inability of people to get along with each other. Take this book away with you this summer and Mr Durrell's unique ability to evoke the Spirit of Place (see his collected letters) will stay with you and haunt you long after you return home from your tame vacation on the beach.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A really delightful book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bitter Lemons (Paperback)
I read this book in high school, on my own, after reading an excerpt in another book. It's really a delightful read--sad, funny, wistful, frustrated and mostly just full of life. My favorite scene, the one I read in the excerpt, is in the long evening in the wine shop--it's so wise and funny and raucous you'll laugh out loud. Please read Bitter Lemons--you'll be happy you did.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A lost time and place,
By
This review is from: Bitter Lemons (Paperback)
I read this book because I'm planning a trip to Cyprus next year. My only previous exposure to Lawrence Durrell's work was PROSPERO'S CELL, his evocative memoir of Corfu. In that book, he tells of having to leave the beautiful island because of the impending World War II. In BITTER LEMONS, Durrell once again finds an island paradise that he has to leave because of political violence. The early chapters of the book are mostly humorous sketches about the lazy life of beautiful Cyprus and the colorful local characters. His happy island home becomes a kind of salon for globetrotting artists and intellectuals. Then about halfway through the book, political trouble starts brewing and terrorism becomes a fact of daily life, destroying Durrell's friendships with the people he had come to love. During this crisis, Durrell, a schoolmaster, is enlisted to serve as an administrator in the British government. There, he finds himself in the frustrating position of watching the crisis escalating all around him and being powerless to do anything about it. Durrell documents the events leading up to a standoff between the British and the Cypriots, primarily the result of British bureaucratic indifference. The book is beautifully written. Durrell was a poet and novelist and his descriptive prose evokes the colors, tastes and smells of the island in a way that is very moving. I enjoyed the early part of the book more than the parts dealing with politics. Durrell could easily have written this as two books and, in a way, I wish he had. The book left me with a terrible sense of loss, but that is perhaps what Durrell intended. This is a sad book.
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