Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Patrick Leigh Fermor (Author), Patricia Storace (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: June 6, 2006 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

Roumeli is not to be found on present-day maps. It is the name once given to northern Greece—stretching from the Bosporus to the Adriatic and from Macedonia to the Gulf of Corinth, a name that evokes a world where the present is inseparably bound up with the past.

Roumeli describes Patrick Leigh Fermor’s wanderings in and around this mysterious and yet very real region. He takes us with him among Sarakatsan shepherds, to the monasteries of Meteora and the villages of Krakora, and on a mission to track down a pair of Byron’s slippers at Missolonghi. As he does, he brings to light the inherent conflicts of the Greek inheritance—the tenuous links to the classical and Byzantine heritage, the legacy of Ottoman domination—along with an underlying, even older world, traces of which Leigh Fermor finds in the hills and mountains and along stretches of barely explored coast.

Roumeli is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s famous Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“There is only one complaint I can think of making about Patrick Leigh Fermor’s books: They appear too seldom. When they do appear, they offer that kindest of pleasures open to a reviewer–the chance of unqualified praise.” –The New York Times

“Mani and Roumeli: two of the best travel books of the century.”– Financial Times

“…Mani and Roumeli remain extraordinarily engaging books. This is partly thanks to Leigh Fermor’s ability to turn an insight into a telling phrase …and partly thanks to his capacity to weave a compelling story out of sometimes unpromising material. One of the best tales of all is the hilarious digression in Roumeli on the attempted recovery of a pair of Byron’s slippers from a man in Missolonghi, on behalf of Byron’s very odd great-granddaughter Lady Wentworth…When you see through all the nonsense about Hellenic continuity, there is, underneath, a much more nuanced account of the ambivalences of modern Greece, its people and its myths (its own myths about itself and us, as much as our myths about it).”–Mary Beard, The London Review of Books


Praise for Patrick Leigh Fermor:
"[O]ne of the greatest travel writers of all time”–The Sunday Times

“[A] unique mixture of hero, historian, traveler and writer; the last and the greatest of a generation whose like we won't see again.”–Geographical

“The finest traveling companion we could ever have . . . His head is stocked with enough cultural lore and poetic fancy to make every league an adventure.” –Evening Standard

About the Author

Patrick Leigh Fermor was born in 1915 of English and Irish descent. After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in A Time of Gifts (1977) and continues through Between the Woods and the Water (1986), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago. His books Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. In the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison officer in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the DSO and OBE. He now lives partly in Greece in the house he designed with his wife Joan in an olive grove in the Mani, and partly in Worcestershire. He was knighted in 2004 for his services to literature and to British–Greek relations.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (June 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159017187X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171875
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Fermor Classic November 20, 2006

By zorba

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I first encountered Fermor in his riveting accounts of his walk across Europe as World War II began descending. I was fascinated by his encyclopedic and poetic narrative. He made you feel you were walking alongside him. Now, his travels take us to Roumeli, the old name for northern Greece and Macedonia. Again, Fermor takes us on a poetic and detailed odyssey through villages and rugged Greek countryside, meeting interesting people and telling their tales. He has an uncanny ear (and eye) for the temperament and culture of the Greeks and one can sense his affection for the people he helped defend while a British commando on Crete during WWII. This is a travelogue of the old sort: careful attention to detail, wanderings off the well-trod tourist paths, and vivid description of the sounds, smells and history of this fabled land.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Treasure trove of Greek lore December 25, 2008

By Panayoti Kelaidis

Format:Paperback

I only discovered Fermor a year ago, and began with Roumeli, which I think is his masterpiece. The book title is somewhat misleading, since the book forays into Crete (the fabulous center section, I wish he had expanded into a book of its own), and ranges all across the Greek world through history as well as geography, although Northern Greece, and some of her strangest corners, are well served. The prose is gorgeous, in a sort of Edwardian fashion, and very erudite. Fermor is obviously a polymath, and his understanding of Greece (and apparently the Greek language) extraordinary. This is a book I treasure: I've bought multiple copies to share with relatives and friends. If you are the least bit interested in modern Greece, and smart enough to do a crossword puzzle, I suspect this could become one of your favorite books as well. Just buy the damn thing!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book on Hellas February 18, 2003

By Alekos

Format:Hardcover

All of Patrick Leigh Fermor's books are of an unusual beauty, but this is without doubt the most beautiful of all. But the author is not for just anyone. I have a friend who bought Roumeli and got only ten pages into it before deciding she didn't like it. But there are reasons for that. She has a journalism background and she lives in New York. Appreciating Leigh Fermor involves taking the time to savor elevated language and imagery emanating from several sometimes unfamiliar realms of meaning. Sorry, folks, but the dumbing down process stops here.
In the first chapter we have a description of the author's travels in Trace and in particular the area around Alexandroupolis, which, interestingly, is named for the Russian Czar Alexander II and not for Alexander the Great. The focus here is the people he calls The Black Departers, or the Sarakatsans, a mysterious and little-studies nomadic group who some say are descendants of the original Greeks who came into the peninsula.
Then there is a delightful chapter centered on the monasteries of Meteora and the holy but realistic Father Christopher, the abbot of St. Barlaam, who has a few tales to tell about the foreign occupiers and their mindless cruelty and how the monks outsmarted them on a few occasions.
Chapter three deals with the famous difference between Hellenes and Greeks (or Romios) that has been used as an analytic model by many serious writers who take an interest in modern Greece, including Robert D. Kaplan in his Balkan Ghosts. This is the division or polarity existing within every Greek you meet on the streets and it shows the distinct pulls of the Eastern and Western orientations that still abide in the Greek collective consciousness and which give, sometimes, the impression of a split personality. Mention is made of George Soteriades the archeologist who insisted that Romios should be used only in the pejorative sense of a mean, vulgar, and sordid man. But the word has also had its very distinguished defenders.
Also worth noting is the fact that this book contains the very elegant and entertaining essay called Sounds of the Greek World, of which I cannot resist giving a few examples here:

Chios is a cakewalk on a cottage piano. ....Hermoupolis is the filioque. .....The Plaka is a drunken polyphony at four in the morning in praise of retsina and the tune of a music- box perched on a photograph album of faded plum velvet with filigree clasps at five in the afternoon.

Yes, this book is beautiful. Take the time to read and enjoy it.