Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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!

Everything in this book is good, but my favorite part is the last chapter, a brilliant prose poem in which the author knits together dozens of Greek place-names and makes them sound like music, resonating with all sorts of subtle historical and literary associations. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Greece.