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Bitter lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell
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Bitter lemons of Cyprus (original 1957; edition 1957)

by Lawrence Durrell (Author)

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8861923,987 (3.86)75
From the New York Times-bestselling author of the Alexandria Quartet: "A superlative piece of . . . writing . . . rooted in the Mediterranean scene" (Time).   In 1953, as the British Empire relaxes its grip upon the world, the island of Cyprus bucks for independence. Some cry for union with Athens, others for an arrangement that would split the island down the middle, giving half to the Greeks and the rest to the Turks. For centuries, the battle for the Mediterranean has been fought on this tiny spit of land, and now Cyprus threatens to rip itself in half.   Into this escalating conflict steps Lawrence Durrell--poet, novelist, and a former British government official. After years serving the Crown in the Balkans, he yearns for a return to the island lifestyle of his youth. With humor, grace, and passable Greek, Durrell buys a house, secures a job, and settles in for quiet living, happy to put up his feet until the natives begin to consider wringing his neck. More than a travel memoir, this is an elegant picture of island life in a changing world.… (more)
Member:CraveBooks
Title:Bitter lemons of Cyprus
Authors:Lawrence Durrell (Author)
Info:Faber and Faber (1957), Edition: Uncorrected page proof
Collections:antique and vintage
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Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell (1957)

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Showing 1-5 of 16 (next | show all)
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  AnkaraLibrary | Feb 23, 2024 |
It became unexpectedly topical as I was reading ! ( )
  sjflp | Jun 18, 2023 |
This was my first read by Lawrence Durrell who is most famous for the Alexandria Quartet. This is just a little memoir of the three years he spent on the island of Cyprus. While the book starts out a light-hearted memoir not unlike Under the Tuscan sun--expat moves in and begins renovating a house surrounded by local colorful characters--the book eventually turns a bit darker. Cyprus was rapidly ending its relationship with the British empire and terrorism and nationalism was taking hold.

So interesting to read this on the heels of Alexandra Fuller's Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. Another book about British expats as the curtains close on Colonialism, this time set in Africa. Interesting that both books feature a tree--in Fuller's book, that tree is one on her parent's property that is rumored to be a place of healing. In Durrell's book is a Tree of Idleness in the center of the Square where men also go to forget and while away the hours. I'm surrounded by trees, so the thought of sitting in the shade on a hot summer's day seems so exotic to me.

Durrell's prose is fantastic. One of the final chapters in the book is so beautifully written. Durrell takes one last day trip with an island friend (a school master) to pick flowers by the sea. The description of that entire trip from the gathering of the flowers to descriptions of land once owned long ago by ancient Greeks:

"And as we walked across the carpets of flowers their slender stalks snapped and pulled around our boots as if they wished to pull us down into the Underworld from which they had sprung, nourished by the tears and wounds of the immortals."

And this about and words from his friend Panos which are even more poignant with the knowledge that a few days after this meeting, Panos was killed.

"The sun was approaching mid-heaven and great lion pads of rock among the foothills were already throwing us forward their reflections of shadow. Panos put away his spectacles and fell to cutting up the coarse brown loaf, saying as he did so: "On days like this, in places like these, what does it all matter? Nationality, language, race? These are the invention of the big nations. Look below you and repeat the names of all the kings who have reigned over the kingdoms of Cyprus; of all the conquerors who have set foot here--even the few of whom written records exist! What does it matter that we are now alive, and they dead--we have been pushed forward to take our place in the limelight for a moment, to enjoy these flowers and this spring breeze which ... am I imagining it? ... tastes of lemons, of lemon blossom."

A beautifully written book that has some echoes in our world today and I look forward to reading more from Durrell. ( )
  auldhouse | Sep 30, 2021 |
51/2020. The main problem with this combination of memoir and travelogue is that the author tends to get in the way and, in this case, the author isn't a pleasant companion. One does have to admire his honesty, or one would have to admire his honesty if it wasn't apparent that he thinks he's clever, witty, and charming company. Anyone who has read the acutely accurate portrayal of Larry in his brother Gerald Durrell's book My Family and Other Animals will already have a more realistic view of Lawrence Durrell (although the child's eye view is minus the adult Larry's right-wing colonialist politics).

I also note that upper middle class Brits who claim they want to slum it with the peasantry almost never do so with the working classes in their own country. In fact Durrell pointedly dismisses the urban working class in Cyprus for being too much like their counterparts in Manchester.

His claims that Cypriots didn't want "enosis" are extremely disingenuous as about 77% of the local population and 96% of ethnically Greek Cypriots had already voted in favour of union with mainland Greece (and an end to British colonial rule).

The author does occasionally put his intelligence and education to good use. There are some nice turns of phrase and even a few telling observations, mostly on the colonial Brits in Cyprus, that escape his brain and find their way into the book. Whether it's worth wading through the additional verbiage and anecdotage is, of course, reader's choice. I chose to finish this as part of my current reading project, which like all similar undertakings has led to the the discovery of unexpected gems and disappointing dullards. Bitter Lemons of Cyprus manages to be both simultaneously.

"Never has one seen such extraordinary human beings as those who inhabited the Dome Hotel; it was as if every forgotten Victorian *pension* between Folkestone and Scarborough had sent a representative to attend a world conference on longevity." ( )
  spiralsheep | May 22, 2020 |
A bit of a chore to get through- gritted teeth and did a chapter a day. Mr Durrell can write quite poetically, and I was left with a sense of wanting to go there. But I didn't particularly warm to him as a narrator.
Firstly, we don't get too much sense of who he is as a person. Once he vaguely mentions a daughter. Otherwise he's a bit of an unknown quantity- his comments on being short of cash, struggling to make ends meet, seems belied by his teaching, writing and - later- work for the British government. His humorous account of buying a house as cheaply as possible leave us feeling more sympathy for the peasant he 'played'. He came across as very convinced of English superiority and it just left me unmoved I'm comparing this with another recently-read memoir of a similar era - again written by an educated man living among peasants (the superb "Christ stopped at Eboli" by Carlo Levi) The latter draws the reader in completely.
Durrell, to be fair, factors in a lot of politics, as the movement for Cypriot independence gains momentum. I knew nothing whatever about this and he does a pretty good job of considering the different factions- villagers who like the English; hot headede young students; the Greeks on the mainlands encouraging them; the Turks...and the British colonials wringing their hands. And the last couple of chapters actually do start to resonate with the reader, as he sees an end to the country he has known.
Informative and descriptive...but not one I enjoyed. ( )
  starbox | Nov 1, 2019 |
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Epigraph
But the poor Cypriots are much-enduring people, and God in his Mercy avenges them; they are no more rulers than the poor serfs and hostages are; they make no sign at all.
Portents do not speak falsely, for those who have experience of them recognize their truthfulness.
- The Chronicle of Makarios
A race advancing on the East must start with Cyprus. Alexander, Augustus, Richard and Saint Louis took that line. A race advancing on the West must start with Cyprus. Sargon, Ptolemy, Cyrus, Haroun-al-Rashid took this line. When Egypt and Syria were of first-rate value to the West, Cyprus was of first-rate value to the West. Genoa and Venice, struggling for the trade of India, fought for Cyprus and enjoyed supremacy in the land by turns. After a new route by sea was found to India, Egypt and Syria declined in value to the Western nations. Cyprus was then forgotten; but the opening of the Suez Canal ha suddenly restored her to her ancient pride of place.
- British Cyprus, W. Hepworth Dixon, 1887
Dedication
To AUSTEN HARRISON of Lapithos in Cyprus
First words
Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will--whatever we may think.
Quotations
Recent research has carried the history of Cyprus back to the early Neolithic age, around 3700 B.C., when the Island seems to have been first settled by an enterprising people whose origins are obscure.
Colonial Report - Cyprus 1954
If you should come to Kyrenia
Don't enter the walls.
If you should enter the walls
Don't stay long.
If you should stay long
Don't get married.
If you should get married
Don't have children.
- Turkish Song
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice neither is in my opinion safe.
- Edmund Burke
If God had not made brown honey men would think figs much sweeter than they do.
- Xenophanes
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From the New York Times-bestselling author of the Alexandria Quartet: "A superlative piece of . . . writing . . . rooted in the Mediterranean scene" (Time).   In 1953, as the British Empire relaxes its grip upon the world, the island of Cyprus bucks for independence. Some cry for union with Athens, others for an arrangement that would split the island down the middle, giving half to the Greeks and the rest to the Turks. For centuries, the battle for the Mediterranean has been fought on this tiny spit of land, and now Cyprus threatens to rip itself in half.   Into this escalating conflict steps Lawrence Durrell--poet, novelist, and a former British government official. After years serving the Crown in the Balkans, he yearns for a return to the island lifestyle of his youth. With humor, grace, and passable Greek, Durrell buys a house, secures a job, and settles in for quiet living, happy to put up his feet until the natives begin to consider wringing his neck. More than a travel memoir, this is an elegant picture of island life in a changing world.

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