Customer Reviews

Facing Athens: Encounters with the Modern City

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1 star:		(7)

 

 

This slim book is most definitely not a travel guide to Athens, and anyone treating it as such is bound to be disappointed. Nor is it a comprehensive impartial journalistic assessment of the city complete with bibliography and footnotes. And unlike all too many books on European cities such as London, Paris, Prague, Venice, etc, it is not a "celebration" of Athens aimed at armchair travelers looking for insights into customs and culture. Rather, it is one man's attempt to return to the city of his not-so-distant youth and take its pulse in an attempt to understand the changes that have taken place over the last two or three decades. In that sense, it is a very reflective and personal book--more of a memoir--and yet one that will reward the reader looking for a more intimate portrait of Athens than is typically found in bookstores or travel magazines.

Sarrinikolaou spent the first ten years of his life in Athens before his family relocated to New York. For this book, he returned to wander the streets of his birthplace, living in a rented apartment and tagging along with distant cousins and friends and friends to social events. The dominant themes are ones that are central (though hardly exclusive) to modern Greece: urban sprawl, suburban flight, immigration, and class. Some may find these themes "depressing" or "negative", however to ignore them is to ignore the primary challenges facing the city.

Sarrinikolaou discusses how the city's wealthy have mostly migrated to suburbs where larger homes can be built, abandoning the center of the city, which is in turn repopulated with immigrants eager to take advantage of the decaying cheap housing. This runs counter to the widely popular notion that immigrants are "invading" neighborhoods and somehow pushing out longtime residents (as if they had the economic clout to do so). In one neighborhood, he encounters a small group of man apparently acting as self-appointed sentries, not allowing Albanians to pass through. Albanians are key players in the story of modern Athens, and function in much the same way as Mexicans do in the United States. After enduring the bizarre and brutal totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha during the Cold War, large numbers fled to Greece and Italy after the collapse of communism and now form a cheap labor pool for the bottom of the service sector. (The illegal immigration pipeline from Albania is the basis of the plot in Petros Markaris's plodding crime novel Deadline in Athens.) Here, Sarrinikolaou isn't afraid to call Greece's "traditional xenophobia" what it is: racism.

Indeed, nothing is off-limits, as he deals with the sacred cow of religion. Attending services at different Greek Orthodox churches, he notices that he is generally the youngest attendee (he's in his early 30s), and questions to what extent the services are empty recitations of comforting rituals, as opposed to true celebrations of faith. The national health care system is held to the light and found wanting when his grandfather is taken ill and doctors must be bribed to complete the life-saving operation (in theory, health-care is available to all citizens for free in Greece). Other targets include conspicuous consumption, the role of money in sexual relations, a nice little bit about soccer, and, of course, the corruption which is utterly pervasive. There's a certain element of airing dirty laundry going on, but one gets a Nixon-going-to-China sense that only a Greek could have written this book. Written in a deeply personal style, it's unlikely to have as much resonance with anyone who hasn't been to Athens, but it's required reading for anyone interested in the city that lies under the Parthenon.

I live in Athens and I can tell you that Sarrinikolaou gets the city just right. I think that readers who have written negative reviews of this book are unfortunately letting a flawed patriotism affect their judgement. This book takes up problems of this city that get talked about on TV and radio in Greece and by many, many Greeks. But the author writes about these problems very movingly, with great care and affection. Read this book.

When you travel to Cairo, or Beijing, or Athens, you can focus your tourist eyes and attention on Pyramids, the Forbidden City, the Parthenon, and the people of the past. Or you can open your eyes and mind wider and also attempt to understand the cities and the people who live today in the shadows of antiquity. "Facing Athens" is for the latter group of travelers.

George Sarrinikolaou faces Athens with eyes and mind wide open, with the memories of an Athenian child, and with a transplanted heart and soul that he also must open wider to accomplish his search for discovery and rediscovery.

What results is a not only deft portrait of today's realities in a great and changing city, but a study that often can be applied, at least in part, to other cities (and countries). From it, a reader's own mind can formulate glimpses of what the future may hold for Athens and the world.

"Facing Athens" is must-read for any thoughtful traveler who believes she/he is, or wishes to be, a true world citizen...and any armchair traveler who enjoys seeing through the eyes of the beholder.

An exile returns home and these are his musings. Being Greek, he is under no obligation to invoke the ancients at every turn and he provides an unvarnished look at a city that is dysfunctional and charming at all once. He'll speak of Greek racism (the Albanians are blamed for nearly everything, the Gypsies for the rest), the total disaster of traffic through the city center, and the pull of the old neighborhoods now destroyed by callous development that is turning everything into concrete block apartment buildings.

I've been to Athens and seem most of what he is talking about. The magic of Athens is not that it is perfect, but that in its great imperfections it still tugs at something inside you.

It was the first book I read from one end to the other in a long time. Captivating and realistic it shows parts of Athens that may not be evident to the eye of the first time visitor. While not a travel book it is however a good book for one who tries to understand modern Athens and modern Greece. The glory of the city shines from ancient times till today but this is not where the author puts the strongest accent in the book. The accent is on the modern society according to me. I loved the book and even if you get a bitter taste at times while you get to know the city ....it feels all so real.

Facing Athens is beautifully written and stylistically original. You needn't be Greek or planning a visit to the country to appreciate Sarrinikolaou's heartfelt and honest perspective of his experience as an immigrant. This work echos with truths applicable to any growing city and any individual who seeks refuge by crossing borders. It is also a tale of a man coming of age as he faces childhood demons. We learn that as an immigrant he is someone on the outside always looking in, and I found this aspect particularly courageous. I only hope that he tells the flip side of the story in a sequel: what was it like to arrive in America with very little, to begin a new life.

I've never been to Athens, but reading this book made me want to visit the city. The author handles complex issues with sensitivity and insight, his descriptions are vivid, and his recollections are touching. I didn't find the book to be negative in tone - contemplative, yes, but certainly not heavy. The text is engaging, and there are a number of observations that you'll want to pause for a moment or two to ponder. While this book clearly wasn't intended as a "travel guide" per se, I would strongly recommend it to anyone planning to go to Greece - it provides an extra layer of nuance that will enhance your experience.

To dismiss this powerful and beautifully written book as too critical or negative is to avert one's eyes from children sleeping on the ground, patients at the mercy of corrupt doctors, and immigrants facing exploitation and discrimination. If readers care about human suffering, or if they simply love Greece, they can't but appreciate the moving story that Sarrinikolaou tells. If we dismiss such stories because they're too troubling to us, or because such problems also exist elsewhere, we dismiss the city itself, failing to look at it carefully and to engage it seriously.

I think the author does a good job of describing and capturing the 'uglier' aspects of today's Athens (which certainly need to be discussed further), but leans towards the dour, missing many of the more positive aspects of life in Athens. As with many large, compact cities, our impressions can change from day to day. With Athens, and Greece in general, the best and the worst of humanity seem to become more apparent and immediate to the senses. I don't know why; maybe it's the close quarters.

The issues that Sarrinikolaou artfully raises can be unsettling to those in the Greek Diaspora and should stir discussion. Our impressions of Greece and what it means to be Greek are based (for myself and for many, I believe) on the rural/island traditions and kinship ties of our parents/grandparents. The problems that face modern Athens are not a part of that inherited image and can be easily overlooked.

But,I find that the more time I spend in the city and settle into its peculiar rhythm, the 'village' is made visible in many of the neighborhoods. From late night group sings in a small apartment and familiarity of corner shops and kiosks, to an entire street helping someone park their car, the city is different from what I expected it, or even may want it to be. But it's also more exciting, unpredictable, provocative, and yes, often comforting.

In prose that is as graceful as it is powerful, this book tells a gripping story of Athens. Anyone who is in touch with Greek culture -- new developments in art, literature, and film -- will find familiar themes: The shock from the new immigrants, the polarization of the city into affluent suburbs and a decaying center, and the struggle of so many people to make a living. But in this book, the stuff of everyday life is narrated with a rare eloquence and sensitivity. I loved this book because it enriched my understanding of a city I treasure.