Amazon.co.uk Review
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is set in the early days of the second world war, before Benito Mussolini invaded Greece. Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn't so bad--at first anyway. The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of "Heil Hitler" with his own "Heil Puccini", and whose most precious possession is his mandolin. It isn't long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved in a heated affair--despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras, who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it touches.

British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays into magical realism in such novels as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. Here he keeps it to a minimum, though certainly the secondary characters with whom he populates his island--the drunken priest, the strongman, the fisherman who swims with dolphins--would be at home in any of his wildly imaginative Latin American fictions. Instead, de Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history as he tells his ever-darkening tale from many different perspectives. Captain Corelli's Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war story and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make it into the history books.

RELEASE NOTES:

I sat down wearily to wait for the Eurostar to brussels where I was attending a conference: I was delighted to pick up the book and when I reqd qbout book crossing i thought it is such a fantastic idea; the book and I went to brussels where I began to read but due to long hours at the conference then long hours partying I did not get very far. now we are together again this time in Paris. all fun this time , no work so we snuggled down on the Eurostar and i have read it all over Paris. on the metro, in the queue to get into musee d' Orsay, fantastic by the way, the Impressionists, van gogh, gegas, edmund cross segurat also Rodin, anyway, then in the Jardin du luxembourg and the tuileries; on the train to versailles and the train back I am not sure if i will finish it before leaving Paris if i do i will bid it farewell at Gare du Nord, if not i shall leave it at waterloo and hope the book brings as much pleasure to the next finder. Thank-you so much M xx

CAUGHT IN LONDON ENGLAND

A few years ago I read an article in a weekend supplement about websites dealing in the tagging, releasing and collecting of books from all over the world. A global library, if you will. I thought 'Oh, well that's an interesting idea' and then promptly forgot about it. A week or so ago, whilst wandering aimlessly through the Medical Student social area at the UEA, I found a dog-eared copy of Captain Corelli's Mandolin with a URL emblazoned across the top, nicely obscuring both title and author. On a whim, I picked it up - and upon further inspection realisd that it was a book that I had been meaning to read for some time now - and decided to take it home and keep it for a while.

As it so happens, I spent the next weekend travelling back home to see my family, stopping over at Victoria Coach Station in London. To me, this seemed the perfect place to leave a book to be picked up. It could - and hopefully will - end up somewhere moderately interesting. In any case, it was an intriguing experience.

As a book, I really quite enjoyed it; it's well-written, poignant, hilariously funny in parts and tear-jerkingly emotional in others. It was not, however, the best of its genre that I've ever read. That honour lies with Sebastian Faulks's 'Birdsong', a novel of even more unpleasant truths and haunting realities than Luis de Bernieres's epic. I just couldn't quite shake the feeling that the ending was a little too perfect, and the passage of time in the last quarter of the book seems to lose all meaning. Before that point it is nigh-on perfect, and a fantastically good read by any standard.

Enjoy, and please post as to where the book's ended up. Tracking the things is half the fun

Will