Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Hardcover

De Bernieres, Louis.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436201585 ISBN 13: 9780436201585

Publisher: SECKER & WARBURG., 1994

Synopsis

Extravagant, inventive, emotionally sweeping, Captain Corelli's Mandolin is the story of a timeless place that one day wakes up to find itself in the jaws of history. The place is the Greek island of Cephallonia, where gods once dabbled in the affairs of men and the local saint periodically rises from his sarcophagus to cure the mad. Then the tide of World War II rolls onto the island's shores in the form of the conquering Italian army.

Caught in the occupation are Pelagia, a willful, beautiful young woman, and the two suitors vying for her love: Mandras, a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerilla, and the charming, mandolin-playing Captain Corelli, a reluctant officer of the Italian garrison on the island. Rich with loyalties and betrayals, and set against a landscape where the factual blends seamlessly with the fantastic, Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a passionate novel as rich in ideas as it is genuinely moving.

About this title

About the Author

Louis de Bernieres' first three novels are The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Book Eurasia Region, 1991), Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book Eurasia Region, 1992), and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. The author was selected as one of the Granta twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993. Captain Corelli's Mandolin won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book, 1995. His most recent book is Birds Without Wings.

From AudioFile

During WWII the little Greek isle of Cephallonia is occupied by a division of Italian soldiers. A young Greek woman, Pelagia (can you hear that name?), betrothed already to a local fisherman, surprises herself by falling in love with the musical, misplaced and Italian Captain Corelli. But this central love is only one of many different kinds that shine out from the blackness of war. Carlo's accounts of his sadly repressed homosexual loves, for example, once understood in their platonic purity, break one's heart. Actor Michael Maloney's interpretation of this beautifully structured and deeply moving historical romance is replete with the music of life and language. He plays up the comedy, suffers with the tragedy and delights in the romance. Reflecting many different viewpoints, his vocalizations of Greek and Italian characters (including an entertainingly demented Mussolini) are filled with the common humanity that unites us listeners in full celebration of the book's great theme: the enduring mysteries of love. Maloney's interpretation is less an enhancement than a fulfillment of this luminescent novel. P.W. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: SECKER & WARBURG.
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0436201585
• ISBN 13: 9780436201585
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544