Bitter Lemons of Cyprus

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This was my first read by Lawrence Durrell who is most famous for the Alexandria Quartet. This is just a little memoir of the three years he spent on the island of Cyprus. While the book starts out a light-hearted memoir not unlike Under the Tuscan sun--expat moves in and begins renovating a house surrounded by local colorful characters--the book eventually turns a bit darker. Cyprus was rapidly ending its relationship with the British empire and terrorism and nationalism was taking hold. First, let us talk about the writing itself: gorgeous, of course. At time a little over the top, always evocative and very visually descriptive with the ability to make both the island of Cyprus and it's inhabitants spring to life. This is the first Lawrence Durrell book I have read and he is certainly a superb writer. A description of his time spent in Cyprus during "Enosis", Greek Cypriots demand for union with mainland Greece, this made fascinating reading. I had spent a week in Cyprus in 2000 and his description of the people and places had me recalling a pleasant week time.

Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell | Goodreads Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell | Goodreads

The reportage on the civil unrest contrasts sharply with the lyrical passages about the island's beauty and long history, and this brings the book to a poignant conclusion as Durrell prepares to leave the island and a way of life he so clearly loves. The slender chain of trust upon which all human relations are based is broken -- and this the terrorist knows and sharpens his claws precisely here; for his primary objective is not battle. It is to bring down upon the community in general a reprisal for his wrongs, in the hope that the fury and resentment roused by punishment meted out to the innocent will gradually swell the ranks of those from whom he will draw further recruits." And as we walked across the carpets of flowers their slender stalks snapped and pulled around our boots as if they wished to pull us down into the Underworld from which they had sprung, nourished by the tears and wounds of the immortals." and thank's to EOKA the Turkish Nationalism was rekindled and the Pogroms in Constantinople occurred in September 1955. Thanks to EOKA Cypriots were divided, thanks to EOKA Cyprus began a journey down to Hades. We got independence (1959/1960) but in 3 years' time (1963) we were divided (unofficially) waiting for the official division (1974) And we are still waiting, divided in discord; I have never seen Pentadactylos' castles as Gothic before reading this book. In addition all the chapters that didn't have to do with the bitter struggle were the ones I loved. Buffavento, Saint Hilarion, Kantara, all these castles were built one after the other along the narrow Pentadaktylos mountains, but sadly when you search for them on Google you see them as castles in Northern Cyprus.I still haven’t finished the book, I don’t believe I can muster enough patience at any time soon to do so, but here are some examples for your immediate pleasure: After moving a few times among other Mediterranean islands, he comes to Cyprus, which was a British colony from 1925. He takes work teaching English in a gymnasium and later as a public relations officer for the British government. The book covers a few years leading up to the Cypriot freedom movement. It captured the life and changing political mindset of the people well, from which I felt was an unbiased point of view. It became a bit dry somewhere along the way, but that can't be helped considering it had to delve into history. The writing reminded me of Ruskin Bond from time to time, which I liked. We still speak Greek which is less unchanged than your English that mutated in a French sounding language after 1066. We were indolent but thanks to EOKA we became known (the only good thing the organisation did.) And no matter how many masters will pass we will stay alive because Greekness is as old as the world

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Audio Download): Andrew Sachs Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Audio Download): Andrew Sachs

Because I am not really up to date of Cyprus history, Lawrence's descriptions while sensitive and non-accusatory kind of fly over my head. The only moral of the story I can draw out of it, is that wherever Britain tried to empire build they screwed up due to a kind of self satisfied blindness. Look at the revolution in India? Or the never ending troubles in the Middle East today, largely caused by Rule Britannica's meddling. So to with Cyprus, apparently, but I could not follow it at all, I crept through that part, a paragraph at a time and almost gave it up as a DNF.Lawrence Durrell was a British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. Born in 1912 in India to British colonial parents, he was sent to school in England and later moved to Corfu with his family - a period which his brother Gerald fictionalised in My Family and Other Animals- later filmed as ITV's The Durrells in Corfu - and which he himself described in Prospero's Cell. The first of Durrell's island books, this was followed by Reflections on a Marine Venus on Rhodes; Bitter Lemons, on Cyprus, which won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize; and, later, The Greek Islands. This book has taken me an extraordinarily long time to complete, part of that is the fact that it felt to me as though it had separate sections that did not always tie together. Some of his knowledge of Greece doesn't seem without merit, such as the fact that Europeans somehow forget that modern Greece's greatest historical influence is probably the Byzantine era. Or his confirmation that a few "lunatics" in Crete or Rhodes could start a struggle for Greek independence almost anywhere. Well, sort of. Lawrence Durrell loves Grecian-ness almost as much as he disparages actual, flesh-and-blood Greeks. He loves classical Greek thought, and certain modern iterations, such as a reverence for the poems of Seferis and Cavafy. But at the end of the day, he's a repulsive reactionary, a proud imperialist, and even though he's smart enough to see all the contradictions of the colonial regime in Cyprus -- the deliberate underdevelopment, the dimwitted little-Englander officials, the way repressive measures invariably give credibility to the anticolonial fighters, an honest respect for the idealism of the Cypriot youth who want freedom -- he still can't escape the notion that an abstract empire is the best steward of his much-adored classical civilization, and like his mentor T.S. Eliot, he far preferred myth to reality. Costas Montis a renowned Cypriot poet wrote a book as an answer to Durrell's Bitter Lemons called Closed Doors: An Answer To Bitter Lemons By Lawrence Durrell

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell – review, 30/11 Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell – review, 30/11

He settles into a dilapidated villa, and with his poet's eye for beauty - and passable Greek - vividly captures the moods and atmospheres of island life in a changing world. Whether collecting folklore or wild flowers, describing the brewing revolution or eccentric local characters, Durrell is a magician with words: and the result is not only a classic travel memoir, but an intimate portrait of a community lost forever. The real position of Lawrence Durrell? "As a conservative, I fully understand, namely; 'If you have an Empire, you just can't give away bits of it as soon as asked.' Commandaria - Κουμανδαρία. Cypriot wine. Sweet, quite different from all the other things you've been hearing about Cyprus lately. Lovely stuff, similar raisiny flavor profile to a PX sherry, but less syrupy and cloying--you can drink this without fear of developing type-2 diabetes. People in Bitter Lemons are always slipping off for a glass of the stuff on some terrace or another. I had to try it.The timing of this is unfortunate though as this is just as there is growing civil unrest in Cyprus. Students are joining the rebellion and there are small acts of terror from grenades and homemade bombs. The British (as usual) misjudged the situation and made a bad situation much worse.