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Here is a rundown on what the book entails thanks to Amazon.Com and Kirkus:
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Dr. Iannis, a wise-father figure of the sort familiar from de Bernieres’s other books, plays choric host to a portrait of life on the island of Cephallonia as Greece is invaded by Italian and German troops during WW II. His brilliant and beautiful daughter, Pelagia, is the story’s heroine. Swirling around them are de Bernieres’s trademark crowd: earth mother, feral girl-child, village strongman, drunkard priest, politically argumentative old men, inarticulate goatherder, and Mandras, an illiterate fisherman who feeds dolphins. They are joined by the soldiers: Carlo Piero Guercio, a tightly closeted homosexual; Captain Antonio Corelli, his clown of a commanding officer, who is a virtuoso mandolin player; and Gunter Weber, a German who carries around a gramophone so that everyone can enjoy “Lili Marlene.” Beginning with Dr. Iannis removing a 60-year-old pea from the ear of one of the villagers and miraculously restoring his hearing, the narrative features one scene of biting political satire after another…
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For such a large cast of characters, they are well drawn out. It doesn’t take much for de Bernieres to mold them and make them real. A credit to his writing skills. However, sometimes his political satire gets to be too much for me, going over my head. For good measure, he even throws in a chapter or two from first person perspective of some of the political leaders of that time, including Mussolini himself. As much as others would enjoy reading these little interludes, adding to the story, I found them hard to get through and disruptive to the overall story. But part of that comes from my lack of knowledge of the subjects (the political issues between Germany and Italy during WWII, and the political issues plaguing the different factions of Greece during this time).
The biggest part of the story lies between Pelagia and her two men; Mandras and Captain Antonio Corelli. Around the time of the Italian invasion, Mandras asks Pelagia to marry him. But he refuses to leave a widow behind and says that they will wed after he returns from fighting, defending themselves against the Italians. When he comes back, he is barely the man he was. In the meantime, the Italians are stationing officers in citizens’ houses throughout the island, and eventually Pelagia and Antonio find a mutual fondness for each other.
What I liked about this was that the characters weren’t the usual “out-of-the-box” type, and it wasn’t just a love story. As stated in the review by Kirkus, it’s heavy on the political side, even though it could get bogged down from time to time. But Corelli is hardly the typical leading man. He’s a goofball who loves opera. One review on Amazon mentioned that while others in the Italian ranks are shouting “Heil Hitler”, Corelli and his band of fellow singers who called themselves La Scala, were shouting “Heil Puccini!”
The ending, though coming rather quickly, was not too “Hollywood” for me. (I say this because a couple of days before finishing the book I found out that it had been made into a movie … and Nicholas Cage is NOT AT ALL how I pictured Captain Corelli.) We get a whirlwind of years going by as the final chapters are read. And de Bernieres leaves you guessing as to exactly what is going to happen, or what has happened, and how you find out. But it was still satisfying. Though in some respects it may be easy to figure out what is going on. (I just get too caught up in the “mystery” of things sometimes when reading a work of fiction.)
Like I said, there is more to this then a love story. Learning about Carlo’s pain due to his sexual orientation, and having a past love of his die in his arms, a victim of the war, plus the background of Dr. Iannis and others involved, it about the village and the Italian forces. Not just the love between three of it’s characters. And even with it’s tough spots, and the fact that it took me over a month to read it, I did enjoy the book.
7/10
