Bitter Lemons of Cyprus

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I mainly read nonfiction, so it was almost magical to read Lawrence Durell’s prose. Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (carefully chosen to coincide with my Greek vacation) has transported me for a week to a mesmerizing corner of Greece that no longer exists, or rather only exists in people’s memories.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus - Lawrence Durrell - Google Books Bitter Lemons of Cyprus - Lawrence Durrell - Google Books

Because I am not really up to date of Cyprus history, Lawrence's descriptions while sensitive and non-accusatory kind of fly over my head. The only moral of the story I can draw out of it, is that wherever Britain tried to empire build they screwed up due to a kind of self satisfied blindness. Look at the revolution in India? Or the never ending troubles in the Middle East today, largely caused by Rule Britannica's meddling. So to with Cyprus, apparently, but I could not follow it at all, I crept through that part, a paragraph at a time and almost gave it up as a DNF.Bitter Lemons is an autobiographical work by writer Lawrence Durrell, describing the three years (1953–1956) he spent on the island of Cyprus. The book was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize for 1957, the second year the prize was awarded. The slender chain of trust upon which all human relations are based is broken -- and this the terrorist knows and sharpens his claws precisely here; for his primary objective is not battle. It is to bring down upon the community in general a reprisal for his wrongs, in the hope that the fury and resentment roused by punishment meted out to the innocent will gradually swell the ranks of those from whom he will draw further recruits." 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. They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our nature-- and the best of them lead us not only outwards in space, but inwards as well. Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.” ( p.15, first paragraph of the book) One of the first schools in Cyprus open in 1812 (under Ottoman rule) in the capital, Nicosia, the Pancyprian Gymnasium. I bought this because I enjoyed his little brother's account of life in Greece very much. I was also hoping to learn more about Greek influence and Cyprus as a tourist destination.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Durrell, Lawrence: 8601300333960 Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Durrell, Lawrence: 8601300333960

And what of the book’s author? He’s pretty adept at this kind of life – island life. He has a reputation as an island poet. Corfu was his family home, along with other animals. Cyprus seems to be a familiar habitat. But his great achievement is this: he gets close enough to the pull of the Tree of Idleness so as to know it like a native, he speaks it’s Greek, he adopts its Byzantine mannerisms and customs; and yet he can pull away when necessary, both physically (making small but intense journeys around the island) and intellectually (seeing the tides of history, politics and empire washing around its mangrove roots). And that then qualifies this not only as travel writing, but genuinely great travel writing – which is never measured in terms of miles traveled on the map. Travel writing as an intensive journey through differences, in time. I am at rather a loss as to where to start with this review. I finished the book, which was in my opinion, superbly written, very poignant and at times witty, with tears in my eyes. Why, well as i have said above, I have a great love of anything Greek, as I think did Lawrence Durrell, and so I found the stupidity of mainly the British Government, unbelievably sad in that it negatively affected so many lives over the next 3 years, 20 years, 40 years, and some would say even to today in Cyprus. The loss of life (as ever such a waste), the resigned fate of the Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish, was heart rending, as even the most peaceful and English loving of them, could see no solution. But unlike Mayes, by the 1950's, Durell was a well-known writer, and a man with wartime experience working for the British government. And in 1953, when Durrell moves to Cyprus, the local demands for Enosis, or union with Greece, are becoming increasingly strident. Durrell is politically conservative, and a supporter of the British Empire -- an empire still largely intact in 1953, despite the recent loss of India. He ultimately becomes the colonial government's Press Adviser, as the demands for Enosis become more violent and the rest of the world watches with increased concern. He writes as an artist, as well as a poet; he remembers colour and landscape and the nuances of peasant conversation . . . Eschewing politics, it says more about them than all our leading articles . . . In describing a political tragedy it often has great poetic beauty.' Kingsley Martin, New StatesmanBitter Lemons is a most extraordinary book. As the work of a lyrical travel writer, we first see beauty. And then horror, as the revolt starts to grow. By 1956, when Durrell finally abandoned the island, murder and destruction was everywhere. A true tragedy. But one documented incrementally by a master of lyrical difference, of the slow and imperceptible transformation of things. As a record of normality slipping uncontrollably into chaos, and the failure of politics and administration to even perceive its fate, it is a vital story, a text book even, the crisis being in many ways a precursor to Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, Palestine. Sadly it seems that it’s lesson has been largely ignored by the politicians who might just have made a difference to those terrible developments. Being optimistic, one could imagine that an ‘enosis’ is now inevitable. Not union with Greece, but rather the union of the whole of Cyprus with the new Europe, the early undercurrent of whose formation was in reality the force that stirred the crisis of ’55. But undoubtedly the politicians will still rabble-rouse and play off minorities so as to get their snouts closer to the trough. Having said that, this story was an engaging tale of life so far removed as to be in a galaxy far, far away. (My family experienced a similar immersion when we spent a week, without a car, on the island of Crete in the 1990s. Walking, using public transportation, eating and shopping along side the natives gives one a very different perspective than blasting through on a bus, boat, train or plane full of fellow tourists sipping prepared experiences, meals and tours of a locality.)