Corelli’s Mandolin

Thursday, March 2nd, 2000

Corelli's Mandolin

It’s a delicious feeling to be reading the kind of book that draws you in completely and makes the rest of the world disappear. Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernières, is just such a book. The more I read, the harder the book was to put down, the faster the hours went by and the later the nights became until finally I had to finish it in a marathon reading session that kept me up until 5 in the morning so that I could find out if everyone lived happily ever after.

The book’s setting doesn’t lend itself to happily-ever-afters - war stories never do. The bulk of the narrative takes place on the Greek island of Cephallonia during World War II. As Greece gets involved in the war, Cephallonia is occupied by the Italians and the Germans. The island’s gradual transformation from pastoral idyll to ravaged battlefield is depicted in heartbreaking detail.

This transformation is observed through the eyes of the book’s characters, who are themselves transformed in the course of the tale. Nothing remains as it once was. When Pelagia, the young Cephallonian woman who is the central character, tells her fiancé at the front to “come back to us after the victory, so that things might be as they were before” (pg. 108), you already know instinctively that things can never be as they were before. The innocence of the island and its inhabitants has already been destroyed by a pointless, hopeless war.

Corelli’s Mandolin is a book of contrasts, contradictions and turnarounds. Enemies become lovers, friends become mortal enemies, peace turns to war, love turns to hate. The structure of the book and the writing itself - at times gorgeous, at times brutal - reflect the contradictions in the story. For instance, Pelagia’s letters to her fiancé are poignant and lovely, filled with the little details of life at home, filled with the sad details of life under German and Italian occupation, filled with love and longing.

The chapter immediately following these letters, however, is a bleak, horrifying, unforgiving description of war as seen through the eyes of an Italian soldier. It’s jolting to go from such beautiful, lyrical descriptions of love to such dreadful descriptions of war, but somehow the two things fit together and complement each other. The love makes the war seem that much more horrific, and the war makes the love that much more precious.

It is de Bernières’ great skill as a writer that allows these contrasts to flow together so remarkably well. There is something Garcia Marquez-esque in his writing. There’s a certain lushness, a lyricism that makes even the brutal descriptions of war poetic in an odd way. The writing encompasses you. It’s moving, but it never descends into pathos. It’s touching but not schmaltzy. There is a pulse to it, as rhythmic as the waves on a sandy Greek beach, or as deliriously fast as machine-gun fire.

This hypnotic pulse draws you deeper and deeper into the book. And the book is, at heart, simply a love story, albeit one of almost Odyssean proportions - as the frequent references to the Odyssey remind us. Each character goes on an Odyssey of his or her own. For some, the journey is explicit, complete with witches named Circe and the lover at the end of the journey who does not recognize her beloved. For others, such as Pelagia, it is an internal journey. Pelagia doesn’t leave the island, but she suffers through trials worthy of Odysseus and she is as steadfast as any Penelope. Her journey is as heroic and transformational as any other.

When I go on an epic journey with characters that are as likable as the practical Pelagia or the charming Captain Corelli, I can’t help but get really emotionally involved with them and their fates. And this leads me to something that I didn’t like about the book: how it ended.

Part of the problem is with the writing that I was just praising so highly. The last chapters have a different tone and a very different pace than the rest of the book. Everything seems a bit rushed. All of a sudden, narrative years go by, and I felt slightly cheated that I didn’t get to be as involved in those years as I had been in the years before.

But the main problem is that I can’t shake feeling that sometimes authors are just not fair to their characters. I first became aware of my problem with this when I read Cold Mountain, a book which bears quite a bit of similarity to Corelli’s Mandolin, what with its love in the time of war theme and all that.

The characters in Corelli’s Mandolin, as in Cold Mountain, go through countless trials, as does the interested reader (in this case, me). With both Cold Mountain and Corelli’s Mandolin I was wrapped up in the story, I was rooting for the characters I’d really come to sympathize with and when it was all over, I closed the book and was left with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction and injustice.

I won’t give away the ending. I’ll just say that I think that the characters in Corelli’s Mandolin deserved better than they got. I know that real life isn’t fair, and I’m not actually a big fan of Hollywood happy ends. But still…when you are the creator - the author - and you create such compassionate human characters, it seems unjust to make your creations suffer so much.

But though the ending was maybe not what I hoped it would be, it was also not as bad as I feared it could be. I didn’t finish Corelli’s Mandolin and throw it across the room in disgust, as I did with Cold Mountain. Maybe I get too attached to characters in books I like.

And there is no doubt that, despite the bittersweet ending, I liked Corelli’s Mandolin. A lot. A whole lot. The story is interesting, the characters are endearing, the writing is excellent, the whole book is amusing and moving. I highly recommend it.

But be prepared to burn the midnight oil reading it.

Corelli's Mandolin

Comments

1

I’ve just started reading this book and it’s got me hooked already.

I’ll tell you what I thought of it after I’ve finished it. I’m off to read some more…

2

Well, I finished it and it truly is a great book.

But I see what you mean about the characters getting a raw deal. I guess it’s a testimony to how the book "ropes you in" that you really come to feel for the characters.

Anyway, it’s a great book and I can see why you’d compare it to "Cold Mountain". Both books have completely different geographical and temporal settings but they both have a similar style and even, dare I say it, message.

3

The book challenges the reader in so many ways: as a retired English teacher, I did not have a big problem with the elevated vocabulary load, but several of my friends definitely did. I found I had to look up about 20 of the "English" words and was able to infer the meanings of the Greek and Italian terms quite easily. Once that hurdle has been overcome, the reader must be able to link the various individual stories, settings, viewpoints, and it is helpful to bring to the text a basic knowledge of history and geography. In any case, you learn a lot about the two latter disciplines just through the quantities of information imbedded in the story. The story itself delighted, horrified and surprised me, and ultimately made me analyze what I need from a book: a happy ending. In fact, I skipped ahead, just as I did in Cold Mountain, because I was getting angry with the author for making the journey to love so filled with frustration. Does a novel have to imitate life so relentlessly? How many of us do find complete fulfillment of our dearest wishes? Is the author saying, "Live with it!"? Just as Pelagia and Corelli are forced to do. But it strains credulity that Corelli could not have found out the facts of Pelagia’s child and realized that he was free to love and live with her. Maybe Corelli needed to be the free, roaming Odysseus more than he was willing to admit.

4

I disagree with the statement that Pelagia is the main character in the novel, maybe at first glance she, or Corelli are the main ones but when u look closer at the book, i think you will find that Carlo is the main character. Maybe it is people being unwilling to see a homosexual as a lead character in such a great novel however his presence on the novel is never lost until he dies saving the life of the man he loves and respects. Carlo is not only the main character but also the only hero to come from the novel and can be seen as such for his actions both in the past and during his time on Cephallonia.

5

I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you - yes it is a lyrical and even readable novel AT TIMES but its self-conscious tone and uncompromising and often distorted view of history, gives it a mechanical feel.

6

Im reading the book for school now and also have to do a collage on it but I dont know what exactly I should add. I found the book touching, interesting and I did like the ending. It was different and unexpected. The main character in this book would definitely be Pelagia. If you have any idead on what to put on a collage for this sort of book, please feel free to email me.

7

I took this book with me on a holiday in Cefalonia and found it impossible to read.Mind you I am the only person I have heard of who just could not be doing with Lord of the Rings.

8

my god… u don’t like lotr… sniff sniffff…

anyway corelli’s ok.. ending sucks so there u go… its ok eminates of odysessus and myths and bit dodgy foe example: the whole nazi stuff, some places but overall quite good…

9

I had to read this book for college and i have to say i enjoyed it a lot, analysing the text really helped me to appreciate which literary styles (monoluges, first person narrative, streams of consciousness, fragmentation and postmodernist style) the author uses and the lengths to which he goes to to create a certain effect or produce the reaction to a character he intended us to have. This extends to having all "good" characters like cats and psipsina, and all "bad" characters like most of the German soldiers and Mussolini disliking them. Louis de Berniers says that actually, the book isnt about war or love, but the relationship between Iannis and Pelagia. This never occurred to me at first, and I have to say I disagree with that and the fact that he says he never used magic realism. But it also made me realise that we can never be sure of anything in history, everyone has a different point of view. For me the only real view that comes through completely in the book is that war is brutal, unecessary and changes lives all over. We tend to adopt this humanitarian viewpoint. I am at the moment writing a coursework essay on Carlo’s contribution to the novel, and I have to say that he is one of my favourite characters in the novel, we are endeared to him through a series of testaments and get to know him like a friend, gradually. He also allows the eponymous hero to survive and ultimately allows Corelli and Pelagia to enjoy their true love, if it is a little belated.

10

I’m doing my Yr 12 English exam on Corelli tomorrow.. and I adore the book, although I agree the ending was more than a little frustrating. De Bernières is brilliant in his poetic ability, the atrocities of war sounding almost enchanting; but I am especially fond of the way Dr Iannis describes "real" love to Pelagia, where he compares it to two trees entwined at the roots.

Overall, an excellent, while challenging, novel. De Bernières is a true wordsmith.

11

Please, could someone tell us how to pronounce "Psipsina??"

12

Am studying Corelli for exam tomorrow (woo!) . I hate it. Sorry but its true. Its full of sanctimonious, "up my own arse ,look at me ,im so good"writing from a washed up wannabe historian. What really aggrivated me most recently is when confronted with angry greeks, bitter at how he had manipulated history, it is instead claimed that LDB’s thesis is to prove that history is in fact impossible, as objectivity can never be achieved. It asounds me how an exam board can view this as literature. On a beach ,fine, but in the exam hall tomorrow, you KNOW i’m going to mess up. Its an attempt by a balding fat english man to write the most comercial novel , in order to sell it. It has clever touches - Pelagia comments on her march that it had an "unsatisfying conclusion", which leads me to believe that LDB purposefully set out to write a rubbish ending. Its like he wants the reader to know that he knows that the ending is a bit crap, and winks at us with a large grin , displaying each of his 5 chins. If he’s so clever, why not give the reader a good ending. Also , can i just ask , has anyone noticed that in Chp 3, the strongman ,Velisarious refuses to lift the trough, yet when meeting Iannis jr and Sprio ,he claims to have lifted it in 1939. Is his memory suspect, or is LDB too lazy to re read his painful novel?????