Swimming to Ithaca
by Simon Mawer | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0316730998 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0316730998 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Semioticghost of Ipswich, Suffolk United Kingdom on 6/14/2006
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
Synopsis from amazon.co.uk
As Dee Denham, once a beautiful and beloved wife, the toast of colonial Cyprus, lies dying, her former life seems unimaginably distant. And then out of the blue Dee speaks to her son Thomas, sitting at her bedside: she tells him that her illness is a punishment. Compelled by a grief he cannot articulate and a confused childhood memory of betrayal, as Thomas begins the process of dismantling his mother's life he finds himself searching for the meaning of her last words. Embarked on a dangerous liaison of his own, he searches through faded photographs and love letters, seeks out survivors and examines his own imperfect remembrance, and suddenly a whole vanished world comes to life. The restless, seductive island of Cyprus at the end of Empire, a place of oleander and carob trees, cocktails at the Harbour Club and adultery in shuttered bedrooms, peopled by ghostly admirers and conspirators, lovers and spies. With gathering momentum Dee's story unfolds, an intimate history of violence and tenderness for which Thomas finds himself quite unprepared, and in the background the distant, ominous roar of approaching disaster. A vivid, precise evocation of the past and a deft and sensitive examination of the dangerous power of memory, Swimming to Ithaca sets fragile human relationships against the heedless, unstoppable force of history and sheds new light on both.
As Dee Denham, once a beautiful and beloved wife, the toast of colonial Cyprus, lies dying, her former life seems unimaginably distant. And then out of the blue Dee speaks to her son Thomas, sitting at her bedside: she tells him that her illness is a punishment. Compelled by a grief he cannot articulate and a confused childhood memory of betrayal, as Thomas begins the process of dismantling his mother's life he finds himself searching for the meaning of her last words. Embarked on a dangerous liaison of his own, he searches through faded photographs and love letters, seeks out survivors and examines his own imperfect remembrance, and suddenly a whole vanished world comes to life. The restless, seductive island of Cyprus at the end of Empire, a place of oleander and carob trees, cocktails at the Harbour Club and adultery in shuttered bedrooms, peopled by ghostly admirers and conspirators, lovers and spies. With gathering momentum Dee's story unfolds, an intimate history of violence and tenderness for which Thomas finds himself quite unprepared, and in the background the distant, ominous roar of approaching disaster. A vivid, precise evocation of the past and a deft and sensitive examination of the dangerous power of memory, Swimming to Ithaca sets fragile human relationships against the heedless, unstoppable force of history and sheds new light on both.
Journal Entry 2 by Semioticghost at BCUK Unconvention 2007 in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom on Thursday, June 28, 2007
Released 16 yrs ago (6/30/2007 UTC) at BCUK Unconvention 2007 in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
This has languished on my to-be-read-pile for too long. It sounds interesting, so it deserves a more discerning reader than I...
This has languished on my to-be-read-pile for too long. It sounds interesting, so it deserves a more discerning reader than I...
Journal Entry 4 by Twicky at Havana Restaurant in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom on Sunday, July 1, 2007