Pascali's Island [Paperback]

Barry Unsworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 1997

"A masterful tale of treachery and duplicity. . . . Spellbinding."--New York Times

The year is 1908, the place, a small Greek island in the declining days of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. For twenty years Basil Pascali has spied on the people of his small community and secretly reported on their activities to the authorities in Constantinople. Although his reports are never acknowledged, never acted upon, he has received regular payment for his work. Now he fears that the villagers have found him out and he becomes engulfed in paranoia. In the midst of his panic, a charming Englishman arrives on the island claiming to be an archaeologist, and charms his way into the heart of the woman for whom Pascali pines. A complex game is played out between the two where cunning and betrayal may come to haunt them both. Pascali's Island was made into a feature film starring Ben Kingsley and Helen Mirren.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Darkly ironic. . . . Offers an almost Conradian richness. (The New Yorker )

A compelling portrait of a schemer whose shabby amorality scarcely ensures his survival in a world where treachery is the rule. (Boston Sunday Globe )

About the Author

Barry Unsworth, who won the Booker Prize for Sacred Hunger, was a Booker Prize finalist for Morality Play and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize for The Ruby in Her Navel. He lives in Italy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393317218
• ISBN-13: 978-0393317213
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very disturbing and penetrating, May 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Pascali's Island (Paperback)

It's not the mastery of language. Nor is it the precision with which Unsworth draws his characters. It is, rather, the skill, always evident in his work, with which he illuminates moral dilemnas that makes this book unforgettable. An intense foray into the mind and heart of am informer, this novel will touch all those who have ever wanted to tell their own story but felt unworthy. A very disturbing and moving work, like all of his other novels that I have read.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read, June 10, 1998

By 

SCOTT X. NELSON - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pascali's Island (Paperback)

I don't know anything about the author, Barry Unsworth, but this is a masterful work of fiction. It reads like a classic. It's engaging and well thought through. reminded me of Hemingway by way of Camus.

I read this after vacationing in the Greek isles, and the book definitely opened my eyes to some of the more recent history that often gets over-looked in favor of the ancient.

In the end, you may not like Pascalli himself, but you will come to understand him and his motivations. And as unlikeable as he can be, you may even feel sorry for him in the end.

A well told story, and a quick read that I would recommend to almost anyone.

20 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Meanwhile, back in 1908..., February 9, 2000

By 

"mgerald" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pascali's Island (Paperback)

This novel is a clever time machine. It warps the reader back to 1908, a sun-drenched island, characters abuzz with intrigue, complex psychologies, morphing intentions behind a mirage of simple diction. The far-off sultan is the ever-present "Excellency," steadily sinking into the quicksand upholstery of his throne. The icky Izzet, both product and perpetrator of Ottoman despotism, gives one a clearer idea of just why the Balkans are such a mess today. Mahmoud Pasha, his bellicose boss, reminds one of a stuffed and cogitating mushroom. There is the suave and sordid Herr Gesing, whose tightly wound cravats and sharply cut suits reek not of lavender but of gunpowder and guts. The lithe Lydia traipses around her studio, draws mysterious money, seemingly from cyberspace, frolics on beaches, and gets herself into the briniest of pickles. Anthony Bowles is friendly but fey. One does not know whether to sympathize with his obsessions or to flee them as one would wildly metastasizing microbes. And the weird Pascali? On the paperback cover, he is pictured in suit coat and bowler, bobbing like a fishing lure in a murky sea, the sky spread out over him as a Levantine tent. This seems like a good place for him, since he spends the entire novel observing what is visible, most of him hidden in a kind of mushy and underwater world. The reader will not soon figure him out, and this is part of the galling genius of Unsworth's achievement. To inhabit his mind from first chapter to last, and still never grasp who he is? Pascali is like a remote and glittering planet: observable, fascinating, but always agreeably distant and aloof.