July 19, 2012

Previously I had read Victoria Hislop’s book, The Island. Like The Island, this book spans several decades. Both books tell the lives and history to a listener, a young person from the modern day Greek Diaspora who has returned to Greece. Both books are riveting reading.

The Thread is the story of turbulent twentieth century Greece, centred on Thessaloniki and is told in the lives of several women, especially Katerina who by the time the book opens, is an elderly lady. It is a story of population movements, ethnic cleansing, famine, war, corruption, dictatorships and the lives of women in a very conservative society. It is also the slow burning love story of the relationship between Dimitri Komninos born in Thessaloniki in 1917 and Katerina Sarafoglous, a relationship that encompasses some of the most traumatic events in Greece of the 20^th century.

• Olga Komninos – a trophy wife of a very rich business man who has sacrificed his humanity for wealth creation. Olga’s lot is not always a happy one.
  
• Eugenia – a refugee from Smyrna who adopts Katerina when Katerina is separated from her mother during the Greek evacuation of Smyrna in 1922. Eugenia is able to support herself, her twin daughters and Katerina by rug making.
  
• Rosa Moreno – a talented seamstress working for the family business. Her family are shipped out of Thessaloniki with most of the Jewish population
  
• Katerina – this is Katerina’s story, Katerina is a talented needlewoman and survives some of the most testing times in Greece because of this skill.
  

The terrible legacy of 20th century Greece emerges, a legacy that Greece has bought with it into the 21^st century, and that is the legacy of greed and corruption. Katerina is tricked into marrying the repulsive Gregorias when she is led to believe that Dimitri, her true love, is dead. Gregorias has made his money from collaborating with the Nazi occupiers, his worst crime is to conspire to seize the Moreno factory after the family is deported to Poland. The other legacy is political fragmentation: the left and right are separated on the extremes and nothing can bring them together. And then one wonders, is the Greek legacy actually something that has been bequeathed to them by the Ottoman Empire? This legacy of corruption and greed, the military dictatorships and the failed state. If so, is this not also the legacy of other countries that have emerged from its shadow – Syria, Iraq, Albania, Serbia, Egypt, Libya, the Arab states, Morocco, Algeria. Maybe what we see in the Arab Spring is in fact the child of a collapsing and degenerate Ottoman Empire. The modern, democratic state asks that its citizens work together for the common good, the Ottoman Empire was a empire where its citizens were obliged to extract as much as they could for themselves for the State was not there for them.

Surprising facts:

• Tobacco is grown in Greece
  
• Greece (or Hellas) did not exist before the 1821 Revolution. Before then, what we know as Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire.
  
• Greece has a silk industry
  
• Women did not get the vote in Greece until 1952
  

July 2012

On Friday I went to the Hampton Court Flower show with my friend Monica. It was one of those summer days that we seem to have seen so much of this year, it rained nearly all day. Now traipsing around a garden show in squelchy shoes is not really my idea of fun and we very nearly called it a day. But a quick trip to a local cafe seemed to have changed the weather. But by then I discovered that my car keys were not in my bag. I may be scatterbrained, but I do look after my keys. We reported them lost – everyone was very helpful but no keys. Lots of suggestions that I had left my keys in the car, which I discounted – the car was locked. I did find my keys – they had been locked in the car – my excuse is that it was pouring with rain when I returned to the car with my haul of plants (an agapanthus called Margaret, a helitrope (smells of cherry pie), a pear tree (small), and a lavender bush for lavender bags. My patio now smells of cherry pie even in the rain.

In the end I phoned my long suffering spouse, who agreed to drop my keys off at Hampton Court Railway Station – just up the road from home. Now reunited with my keys, Monica and I headed back to the show for a well deserved cup of tea and as it was not raining to visit some of the stalls and gardens that we had missed due the pouring rain. One of the gardens was this one – a fantasy community garden where all the materials (or most of the materials used) are second-hand. Quite a revelation in this materialistic age. And I bought the book – and got free copy of the magazine thrown in. I did have some strange idea that I would justify buying the book because it would be a present for someone but the way it is going I am keeping it for myself!

The book is a scrapbook of pictures and ideas – often harking back to a bygone age (hence the title Pretty Nostalgic). The philosophy is reuse (and upcycle!), buy British, make it yourself, grow it yourself… Maybe I am not that eccentric after all. The Pretty Nostalgic website: http://prettynostalgic.co.uk/

Pretty Nostalgic Home by Nicole Burnett and Sarah Legg, published by Pretty Nostalgic Ltd, Wales.

Audio book – February 2007.

One evening I was driving home from work listening to the book. The traffic was heavy. Henry was dying. In the end I had to pull off the road to listen and weep. Driving and high emotion do not go together I decided.

It is a love story based on a fantastic premise – Henry suffers from Chrono-Displacement disorder, a disorder that causes him to jump in time – one moment he is there and the next he is somewhere else. However, the clothes do not travel. The story is a love story between Clare and Henry, Clare is six and Henry is 41 when they first meet. But the book begins when Clare is 20 and Henry 28..

This is a book which examines the nature of love and touches on the question of free will and pre-destination. And what it is like to live with someone with a disability – in this case, Henry’s inability to stay in any one time zone. Did Clare ever have a choice about her relationship with Henry? She grew up knowing that one day Henry would be hers. But do any of us really have a choice?

Audrey Niffenegger is an artist – and so is Clare. She painstakingly describes Clare’s approach to creating works of art, and it was no surprise to read that Niffenegger used the same techniques to construct the book. The book opened the doors to another world, the world of the practising artist.

Did I enjoy the book? Yes. Would I recommend it to anyone else to read? Yes – but not everyone would enjoy the way the story is constructed and it is not for those who like realism. And the film? Not a patch on the book.

I have just finished listening to this. One of the things I enjoy about reading John le Carré is the wonderful way he describes people. The inclination of a head, the half closed eyes, the back held stiff, pudgy fingers pressed into the eyes. George Smiley is a masterpiece. There is a flatness in the description that draws you in, an economy of emotion that creates its own tension. Ned’s interrogation of Cyril Fruin for instance. Ned sits on a chair and smokes a pipe and all the while stringing Fruin along – keeping the momentum going. And Cyril talks. For spying is a game that involves people, individuals with needs and wants and hopes. Ned’s life walks alongside those he is called on to manage or to extract information. And in the end Ned retires to the seaside with Mabel, his long-suffering wife.

It is the final story when Ned is asked to confront Bradshaw, a boorish, nasty piece of work who will sell anything to anyone, guns, drugs, you name it for as he says, h=if he does not, someone else will. All his working life, Ned has been a spy, and the rules of engagement are clearly defined. The enemy is obvious and good and evil are minor players. But here in the last story, two days before Ned retires is the bridge between the cold war Smiley stories and the new geo-political stories, such as the Constant Gardner. Ned reflects on the nature of Bradshaw and the nature of evil. Here is the new enemy to be challenged, the power of the multi-national, of men seeking to dominate the world , men who lust for power without the responsibility of managing a state. The stage is set for the next act as Ned leaves and evil stalks the world. The cold war is over, but new challenges face all of us.

Published: July 3, 2012