This book starts its journey with BookCrossing from Naxos Island, Cyclades, Greece.
I bought it from Kapetanios Bookstore near Platsa on Apiranthos.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blurb:
" Eager to flee the parochialism of her French upbringing, and a painful family past, the young and beautiful Marina falls in love with a seductive Greek sea-captain she meets at the port of Rouen. She follows him to the Aegean island of Syros to begin a new life as a married woman in the home of her formidable mother-in-law. Enchanted by the beauty of her surroundings, and fascinated by her husband’s erudite younger brother, she aspires to learn all she can about contemporary Greek culture and live up to the ideals of her classical education. But when disaster upends her husband’s shipping business and the comfortable stability of their life together, Marina’s world slides into a vicious circle of love, passion, and death.

Set in the early decades of the twentieth century, The Great Chimera is an exquisite account of the inner life of the heroine, and the collisions of different cultures and ways of being. In prose that ranges from the lyrical to the tersely realist, Karagatsis weaves a classic tale that is wide-ranging in its literary references, and devastating in its psychological nuance. This modern Greek tragedy has been made into a TV series and a highly acclaimed stage play, enjoying three sold-out seasons in Athens, and an international tour. "


~~~~~~To the person who found this book:~~~~~~

Welcome to BookCrossing.com, where we are trying to make the whole world a library!

If you have not already done so, please make a journal entry so we know this book has found a new home. Drop a few lines on where and how you found this book and what you thought of it. You don't need to join BookCrossing and you can remain completely anonymous. However, I encourage you to join so that you can follow this book's future travels. It's fun and free, and your personal information will never be shared or sold.

This book is now yours, and you can keep it if you choose, although I would love you to read and then share it. You can pass it on someone you know or release it once again in the wild, leaving it on a park bench, a phone booth, a hostel lobby...wherever you think it's suitable for the book to continue its journey. If you pass it along, please make a release note to let others know where you left it.

I hope you enjoy the book!

(I bought this for BookCrossing purposes. Those are my comments from a previous read a couple of years ago)

Karagatsis' writting is brilliant at some parts of the book and it mixes a very lyrical, poetic language, mythic and religious elements with some very realistic scenes and narration. That said, I'm not as enthused with The Great Chimera as many of my compatriots are.

This book was quite original and bold on its era, but sometimes it feels rather clinche and pompous to a modern reader. The first 150 pages or so are too slow and the main character other than somewhat obnoxious, feels surreal. Her phantasies and day dreams through out the book get too much sometimes. As the story procceeds, both the prose and the story improve, although most plot twists are predictable and some developments are both cliche and too exaggerated. That said, around the middle of the book the way the author miggles the lyrical, mythological element with the realistic narration of the story, is both weird and captivated. The end is sad and predictable.

In general the book's structure follows one of an Ancient Greek Tragedy (hybris-nemesis-katharsis). It is an interesting read for sure, one worthing to be read, but I'm not as crazy about it as most readers seem to be...

Released on Apollonas village, on the port area.

Good Luck my book and Don't forget to write your news from time to time!