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Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

By Anita Mathias

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin


It’s so much easier and quicker to watch the movie than read the book I land up watching the film version of many books I have wanted to read. I enjoyed Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the movie. I knew nothing of the German massacre of the Italian troops, or the Italian occupation of Greece (It’s been decades since A level history!) so I spent an enjoyable half hour on the net afterwards filling in my historical gaps.  

The novel sounds really interesting. I love polyphonic novels, likeSound and Fury and piecing together a complete picture from the fragments of things people say, a bit like listening to gossip. I look forward to reading it. Here’s a tantalizing review.

The different sounds of the mandolin

John Mullan on the ironies imbued in the polyphonic voices of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
  • John Mullan
    • John Mullan
    • The Guardian, Saturday 25 August 2007
    • Article history
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Buy Captain Corelli’s Mandolin at the Guardian bookshop
On the feast day of St Gerasimos, patron saint of the Greek island of Cephalonia, the mummified remains of the holy man are paraded and the islanders become “outlandishly drunk”. (The first detail from Louis de Bernières’s Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is confirmed by the Greek tourist board; the latter is the novelist’s embellishment.) In the novel, troupes from different towns loudly strike up rival songs, some fishermen from Panago-poula miraculously managing, over the chatter of the crowd and the crashing of a cannon, to weave “a harmony intricate and polyphonic”. “The brotherhood of the sea,” declares the narrator, in imitation of the fishermen’s bibulous self-congratulation, has produced “conclusive proof of their metaphysical unity”.
It is also comically analogous to the novel’s narrative method. Its 73 short chapters move rapidly between different characters, historical as well as invented. Dr Iannis, his daughter Pelagia, and Captain Corelli, the Italian soldier billeted in their house during the wartime occupation, may be the central characters, but we hear many different narrative voices, some first-person and some third-person. The former include a chapter of dramatic monologue given to Mussolini, posing in front of a mirror; the interior monologues of Pelagia; and Mandras, the fisherman who is courting her; and chapters headed “L’Omosessuale”, narrated by the secretly homosexual Italian soldier, Carloi Guercio. “Thank God no one reads my mind,” says Pelagia silently, as she reviews her own “sluttish thoughts”. But we do.
Different voices find many forms. There are letters; there are political diatribes; there are speeches and sermons. Equally, the chapters of third-person narrative reflect many different viewpoints. Most often we see events through the eyes of Iannis, or Pelagia, or Corelli, but free indirect style gives us the thoughts of many others, from Mina, the mad girl who is to be “cured” by Saint Gerasimos, to Lieutenant Weber, the “good Nazi”, confused by the habits of his Italian allies. The collection of narratives is made to enact an understanding of human variety.
It is a novel not just of different narrative voices and points of view, but also of different languages. It uses fragments of Italian, French, German (and transliterated Greek), but mostly it has to represent the different languages, and the mutual misunderstandings, of the characters in a language that none of them are using: English. (Though if Iannis and his daughter were not fluent in Italian, a language for which the doctor has always had an inflated regard, and therefore able to have all their disputes with Corelli, the novel would not have been possible.) Incomprehension is invariably comical. An Eton-educated British agent is introduced to Iannis and made to speak a Chaucerian English that is the novel’s equivalent of the classical Greek he employs. “Sire, of youre gentillesse, by the leve of yow wol I speke in pryvetee of certeyn thyng,” is his opening gambit. “What?” replies the bewildered doctor, speaking in a fluent, colloquial English which is the novel’s equivalent of modern Greek. When he and the Englishman agree to converse in English, Iannis’s speech becomes broken and ungrammatical: “You accent terrible-terrible. Not to talk, understand?”
The book’s ebullient varieties of speech and narrative make it tempting to call it a “polyphonic novel”. The term was invented by the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin in the 1920s to describe Dostoevsky’s fiction. Bakhtin praised Dostoevsky for rendering “a plurality of unmerged voices and consciousnesses”. He had in mind the novelist’s willingness to allow his characters’ words and attitudes to predominate over any authorial insights. (Would Captain Corelli’s Mandolin always qualify by this test? De Bernières’s novel includes passages where a narrator tells us things -such as future events – that none of his characters can know.) Bakhtin initially claimed that Dostoevsky had originated “a fundamentally new novelistic genre”, before later deciding that he had instead perfected what had always been a subversive inclination of most interesting fiction.
Bakhtin valued “polyphony” because it seemed a rebellion against the narrative habits of 19th-century fiction (and implicitly the strictures of the socialist realism being recommended in the Soviet Union). Now it hardly seems revolutionary. Indeed, the opening of a single novel to multiple narrators and viewpoints has become relatively common in recent fiction, and “polyphonic” has become a frequent description. The literary novel that narrates in the singular, reliable “voice” of its author (which Bakhtin would have called “monologic”) is nowadays a much rarer thing. Some, like David Lodge, have argued that this reflects the contemporary novel’s lack of trust in its ability to understand the world. Yet the success of De Bernières’s novel is to find in narrative variety not confusion, but comedy and consolation.



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Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India

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Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

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The Story of Dirk Willems

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  • Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India. My new memoir
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If you'll forgive me for adding to the noise of th If you'll forgive me for adding to the noise of the world on Black Friday, my memoir ,Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India, is on sale on Kindle all over the world for a few days. 
Carolyn Weber (who has written "Surprised by Oxford," an amazing memoir about coming to faith in Oxford https://amzn.to/3XyIftO )  has written a lovely endorsement of my memoir:
"Joining intelligent winsomeness with an engaging style, Anita Mathias writes with keen observation, lively insight and hard earned wisdom about navigating the life of thoughtful faith in a world of cultural complexities. Her story bears witness to how God wastes nothing and redeems all. Her words sing of a spirit strong in courage, compassion and a pervasive dedication to the adventure of life. As a reader, I have been challenged and changed by her beautifully told and powerful story - so will you."
The memoir is available on sale on Amazon.co.uk at https://amzn.to/3u0Ib8o and on Amazon.com at https://amzn.to/3u0IBvu and is reduced on the other Amazon sites too.
Thank you, and please let me know if you read and enjoy it!! #memoir #indianchildhood #india
Second birthday party. Determinedly escaping! So i Second birthday party. Determinedly escaping!
So it’s a beautiful November here in Oxford, and the trees are blazing. We will soon be celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary…and are hoping for at least 33 more!! 
And here’s a chapter from my memoir of growing up Catholic in India… rosaries at the grotto, potlucks, the Catholic Family Movement, American missionary Jesuits, Mangaloreans, Goans, and food, food food…
https://anitamathias.com/2022/11/07/rosaries-at-the-grotto-a-chapter-from-my-newly-published-memoir-rosaries-reading-steel-a-catholic-childhood-in-india/
Available on Amazon.co.uk https://amzn.to/3Apjt5r and on Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3gcVboa and wherever Amazon sells books, as well as at most online retailers.
#birthdayparty #memoir #jamshedpur #India #rosariesreadingsecrets
Friends, it’s been a while since I blogged, but Friends, it’s been a while since I blogged, but it’s time to resume, and so I have. Here’s a blog on an absolutely infallible secret of joy, https://anitamathias.com/2022/10/28/an-infallible-secret-of-joy/
Jenny Lewis, whose Gilgamesh Retold https://amzn.to/3zsYfCX is an amazing new translation of the epic, has kindly endorsed my memoir. She writes, “With Rosaries, Reading and Secrets, Anita Mathias invites us into a totally absorbing world of past and present marvels. She is a natural and gifted storyteller who weaves history and biography together in a magical mix. Erudite and literary, generously laced with poetic and literary references and Dickensian levels of observation and detail, Rosaries is alive with glowing, vivid details, bringing to life an era and culture that is unforgettable. A beautifully written, important and addictive book.”
I would, of course, be delighted if you read it. Amazon.co.uk https://amzn.to/3gThsr4 and Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3WdCBwk #joy #amwriting #amblogging #icecreamjoy
Wandering around Oxford with my camera, photograph Wandering around Oxford with my camera, photographing ancient colleges! Enjoy.
And just a note that Amazon is offering a temporary discount on my memoir, Rosaries, Reading, Steel https://amzn.to/3UQN28z . It’s £7.41.
Here’s an endorsement from my friend, Francesca Kay, author of the beautiful novel, “An Equal Stillness.” This is a beautifully written account of a childhood, so evocative, so vivid. The textures, colours and, above all, the tastes of a particular world are lyrically but also precisely evoked and there was much in it that brought back very clear memories of my own. Northern India in the 60s, as well as Bandra of course – dust and mercurochrome, Marie biscuits, the chatter of adult voices, the prayers, the fruit trees, dogs…. But, although you rightly celebrate the richness of that world, you weave through this magical remembrance of things past a skein of sadness that makes it haunting too. It’s lovely!” #oxford #beauty
So, I am not going to become a book-bore, I promis So, I am not going to become a book-bore, I promise, but just to let you know that my memoir "Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India," is now available in India in paperback. https://www.amazon.in/s?k=rosaries+reading+secrets&crid=3TLDQASCY0WTH&sprefix=rosaries+r%2Caps%2C72&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_10My endorsements say it is evocative, well-written, magical, haunting, and funny, so I'd be thrilled if you bought a copy on any of the Amazon sites. 
Endorsements 
A beautifully written account. Woven through this magical remembrance of things past is a skein of sadness that makes it haunting. Francesca Kay, An Equal Stillness. 
A dazzling vibrant tale of childhood in post-colonial India. Mathias conjures 1960s India and her family in uproarious and heart-breaking detail. Erin Hart, Haunted Ground 
Mathias invites us into a wonderfully absorbing and thrilling world of past and present marvels… generously laced with poetic and literary references and Dickensian levels of observation and detail. A beautifully written, important, and addictive book. Jenny Lewis, Gilgamesh Retold 
Tormented, passionate and often sad, Mathias’s beautiful childhood memoir is immensely readable. Trevor Mostyn, Coming of Age in The Middle East.
A beautifully told and powerful story. Joining intelligent winsomeness with an engaging style, Mathias writes with keen observation, lively insight and hard-earned wisdom. Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford 
A remarkable account. A treasure chest…full of food (always food), books (always books), a family with all its alliances and divisions. A feat of memory and remembrance. Philip Gooden, The Story of English
Anita’s pluck and charm shine through every page of this beautifully crafted, comprehensive and erudite memoir. 
Ray Foulk, Picasso’s Revenge
Mathias’s prose is lively and evocative. An enjoyable and accessible book. Sylvia Vetta, Sculpting the Elephant
Anita Mathias is an is an accomplished writer. Merryn Williams, Six Women Novelists
Writing a memoir awakens fierce memories of the pa Writing a memoir awakens fierce memories of the past. For the past is not dead; it’s not even past, as William Faulkner observed. So what does one do with this undead past? Forgive. Forgive, huh? Forgive. Let it go. Again and again.
Some thoughts on writing a memoir, and the prologue to my memoir
https://anitamathias.com/2022/09/08/thoughts-on-writing-a-memoir-the-prologue-to-rosaries-reading-secrets/ 
#memoir #amwriting #forgiveness https://amzn.to/3B82CDo
Six months ago, Roy and I decided that finishing t Six months ago, Roy and I decided that finishing the memoir was to be like “the treasure in the field,” that Jesus talks about in the Gospels, which you sacrifice everything to buy. (Though of course, he talks about an intimate relationship with God, not finishing a book!!) Anyway, I’ve stayed off social media for months… but I’ve always greatly enjoyed social media (in great moderation) and it’s lovely to be back with the book now done  https://amzn.to/3eoRMRN  So, our family news: Our daughter Zoe is training for ministry as a priest in the Church of England, at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. She is “an ordinand.” In her second year. However, she has recently been one of the 30 ordinands accepted to work on an M.Phil programme (fully funded by the Church of England.) She will be comparing churches which are involved in community organizing with churches which are not, and will trace the impact of community organizing on the faith of congregants.  She’ll be ordained in ’24, God willing.
Irene is in her final year of Medicine at Oxford University; she will be going to Toronto for her elective clinical work experience, and will graduate as a doctor in June ‘23, God willing.
And we had a wonderful family holiday in Ireland in July, though that already feels like a long time ago!
https://anitamathias.com/2022/09/01/rosaries-readi https://anitamathias.com/2022/09/01/rosaries-reading-secrets-a-catholic-childhood-in-india-my-new-memoir/
Friends, some stellar reviews from distinguished writers, and a detailed description here!!
https://amzn.to/3wMiSJ3 Friends, I’ve written a https://amzn.to/3wMiSJ3  Friends, I’ve written a memoir of my turbulent Catholic childhood in India. I would be grateful for your support!
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