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螖蔚委蟺谓慰 渭蔚 蟿畏谓 螤蔚蟻蟽蔚蠁蠈谓畏

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A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"Full of insights, marvelously entertaining . . . haunting and beautifully written."
--The New York Review of Books

"I lived in Athens, at the intersection of a prostitute and a saint."听听So begins Patricia Storace's astonishing memoir of her year in Greece. Mixing affection with detachment, rapture with clarity, this American poet perfectly evokes a country delicately balanced between East and West.

Whether she is interpreting Hellenic dream books, pop songs, and soap operas, describing breathtakingly beautiful beaches and archaic villages, or braving the crush at a saint's tomb, Storace, winner of the Whiting Award, rewards the reader with informed and sensual insights into Greece's soul. She sees how the country's pride in its past coexists with profound doubts about its place in the modern world. She discovers a world in which past and present engage in a passionate dialogue. Stylish, funny, and erudite, Dinner with Persephone is travel writing elevated to a fine art--and the best book of its kind since Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi.

"Splendid. Storace's account of a year in Greece combines past and present, legend and fact, in an unusual and delightful whole. "
--Atlantic Monthly

534 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

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Patricia Storace

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
Profile Image for Joe.
98 reviews698 followers
September 4, 2010
I would like to begin this review with a compliment. Patricia Storace is unbelievably smart. Like, Mensa smart. A genius.

I would like to follow that compliment with a complaint. Patricia Storace is excruciatingly boring. At times, pathologically so.

If I could play Author Matchmaker, I would demand that Storace marry Matthew Battles, author of the terrifically dull . Theirs would be the perfect union, a constant stream of one-upping in their compendious knowledge.

Readers should know that, although marketed as such, Dinner with Persephone is not a travelogue about Greece. Sure, Storace spends a year in Greece and writes about her travels, but she doesn't have adventures. She has no time for such nonsense. There is too much thinking to do. We'll get to that in a minute.

There is a uniformity to this memoir that is unmatched by any I have previously read. The forty-one essays that comprise Dinner with Persephone follow a disarmingly unwavering formula.

1. A (Generally) Enticing Chapter Title. Who wouldn't want to read missives titled I See Elvis and A Dream of a Bodiless One? A tale about running into an Elvis lookalike on the busy streets of Athens? That's a potential comedic goldmine. Sadly, it is not so.

2. A Clever Introductory Paragraph. Storace has mastered the art of an engaging hook. Nearly every initial paragraph is tantalizing and promising of things to come. Things that, in fact, never come. In some ways these paragraphs are like heeding a siren's call: you will be lured in only to be dashed upon sharp rocks, your limbs forcibly torn from your torso by wave after wave of sheer boredom.

3. Digression Into a Dull Historical or Cultural Fact. Storace wastes no time in quickly abandoning a potentially engaging statement or hook and instead leads the reader down the path of a tiresome history lesson. These digressions serve one purpose only: to illustrate to the reader how much she knows. And she knows a lot. She knows more than any human being should possibly know about Greece. She knows more about Greece than Greece knows about Greece.

4. Additional Digression.

5. Another Digression.

6. Anticlimactic Ending. Storace ends her essays like a Civil War surgeon. She amputates ruthlessly and without anesthesia, mostly because the story wasn't going anywhere anyway, so what purpose would a sensical ending bring?

Prior to writing Persephone, Storace was a poet, and her relish for engaging in purple prose is paraded out with little regard to sense or propriety.

...I find a waterfall hidden in the hills behind Mystras, its waters curling in marryings and divorcings like the destinies or lovers; some of its currents meet inevitably, others are inexorably divided, others separated and reunited, all with a common destiny awaiting them in the pool below. (page 282)

*blinks* What? WHAT? Patricia, there is nothing special about your little Grecian waterfall. In fact, it is like every other waterfall, and certainly not worthy of an extended and terrible metaphor rendered in language that would make most English professors cough up a hairball. Even amateur Creative Non-fiction workshoppers would know better... and they aren't published authors. Who was your editor? I hope he doesn't have a job anymore.

Worse still is that much of the memoir is spent in Storace's head, as she is constantly reminded of something dull she has learned. Her expansively catalogued memory is incessantly triggered by daily minutia, giving the reader the impression that it must be exhausting being Storace. Based solely on Persephone, we can infer that her brain works under the auspices of the following model:

"This [uninteresting and convoluted historical, social, or cultural fact] reminds me of [vaguely related but equally boring and intricate historical, social, or cultural fact] which makes me think of..."

The number of times she employs the phrases "I am reminded of..." or "I think about..." or "I remember..." is astonishing. Storace's brain is packed with so much trivial information that even the most fervent Jeopardy! fan would be instantly wearied by her ruminations. Hell, most scholars would be embarrassed to be held in her company.

Perhaps her biggest failure is making Greece seem like an interesting place to visit. In fact, it sounds downright awful, particularly because of the men, who come across as hedonistic sexists who spend much of their time trying to kiss Storace or fondle her boobs. Furthermore, the citizens are painted as jingoists, participating in a blind, automaton-like love for their country, and denouncing every other country, particularly Bulgaria and Turkey, with a nearly jihadist passion. Additionally, whenever Storace engages a native Greek in conversation, she is treated to a tedious history lesson that delights her, but serves no purpose other than to give the impression that every Greek person alive is a Walking, Talking Encyclopedia of All Things Greece. Press a button on their back and every Pre-and-Post-Hellenic Tidbit that exists comes pouring out like ouzo. No, thanks.

Still, Storace has one good essay in her, the truly remarkable The Dream of Love After the Dance, a biographical sketch of the Greek children's author Penelope Benaki. This well-crafted, supremely riveting story abandons the aforementioned formula, instead following a straightforward method that reveals Storace as a legitimately good writer who has the capability of not falling victim to her own affectations. Benaki is presented as a tragic hero, the victim of familial circumstance and repression who attempts (and fails) to rise above her position in life. I highly recommend reading it, but don't become its fool. Nothing else in the book is nearly as absorbing.

Trust me. I spent three months of my life forcing myself to read every goddamned last word of it.
Profile Image for Left Coast Justin.
550 reviews174 followers
November 8, 2021
I'm amused by reviews that splutter, "This isn't like Greece at all! She just doesn't get it!" As if there were some objective 'Greece' that we can all agree upon, and she somehow failed to notice it.

Because, of course, this is not a book about Greece at all. It's a book about Patricia Storace, and how she spent one year of her life, and which happened to occur in Greece. And had Ms. Storace not been an interesting topic for a book, this could have been awful. Luckily, she is a woman of deep passions and great learning. (And as others have noted, she is not afraid to show it.)

When you combine deep passions, great learning, and the introverted personality of a serious writer, you tend to get a degree of fabulation. The set of people she befriends in Athens, and who crop up now and again at different points in the book, are all glittering examples of cultured humanity --actors, playwrites and the like. Her new friend Kyrios, for example, allegedly opines over a plate of olives:
"Our whole history is a cycle of miracles. It cannot be understood with reason--and I don't say this out of nationalism. Who can explain how the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae were possible, the perfection of the Parthenon, which was built before you had a language, the sublimity of Agia Sofia, so beautiful that it alone converted the savage Russians, the women of Zalongo, who danced off cliffs to their deaths so the Turks could not capture them, or 1940, when we almost with our bare hands defeated Mussolini's soldiers with their beef and their overcoats and their imitation of civilization? Greece will never die, no matter how much people who hate our light would like to snuff us out."
Did he really say this, and is her memory of all those interlocking clauses really that perfect? To insist on the veracity of what she writes is to miss the point, and to rob yourself of the pleasures this narrative can provide. I did learn quite a bit about modern Greece while reading it, and I have no cause to doubt the extensive and often-violent sexism that she reports on. Despite that, she clearly loves the place, warts and all, and this book filled me with joy in the same way that watching newlyweds or old couples holding hands can do.

It turns out that Patricia Storace is a wonderful topic for a book, and she is the ideal person to tell it.
Profile Image for Stephen Shifflett.
Author听2 books32 followers
July 3, 2008
This is more than a travel book--even with its subtitle "Travels In Greece." And at first I was afraid it would predominately feminist lit, given the V shape cut into the Pomegranate on the cover. But it turned out to be the most important book I've read about modern Greek culture...and how it was shaped by the past. How it was shaped by other peoples, in ancient times--but most importantly since Byzantine times since any number of books cover the time period from the Pre-Socratics to the Romans.

For instance, I had known that the Renaissance didn't reach Greece, but I never knew in what ways it affected the Greek culture, and how it still does to this day. I've known that Christain saints, rituals, and hoidays took the place of pagan gods, rituals, and rites...but I never realized to what extent this occured in Greece...

But it also has the quality of an epic poem...with imagery that can scarcely be captured even with photographic images.

It definitely warrants a sencond and third read, and will be indispensable for the writing process of my future novel WAITING FOR THE SUN.
Profile Image for Phoenix2.
1,175 reviews110 followers
December 5, 2015
I read this book for an uni essay about tourism, really, as this book is not really my thing. I enjoyed descriptions about the scenary and everything, and how smooth it jumped from one subject to an other. I wished I could see more of the author in it, but I guess that wasn't that bad after all. So 2 out of 5.
Profile Image for Thomasin Propson.
1,097 reviews21 followers
May 27, 2017
Page 319 - The Dream of Love After the Dance. This chapter/essay saves the book. Beyond it (which provides a biography of Penelope Delta, tragic and important figure of Greek children's lit and language), the book more depressed than impressed. Is her recount in many ways fascinating? Sure. But does it endear me to Greece? No. In fact, though I may now have a more realistic view of the country and its people, I feel the distance between our cultures as a weight rather than an opportunity, and I am surprised and disappointed by my reaction. And I blame the book... (because I am very adult like that!)
Profile Image for I帽aki Tofi帽o.
Author听29 books54 followers
October 17, 2011
I got the book a thousand years ago and never got to read it. I finally did and loved from the first page to the last. It is Greece the way I remember it from my Erasmus in Thessaloniki, it is the weird feelings, the warm welcomes, the language, the bridge between East and West, the fact of being Europe but sometimes not quite so...
Storace makes a beautiful case for the country and although it is not the best introduction to the country (too many assumptions about too many things) I must say that I have learnt a lot from her.
31 reviews1 follower
August 2, 2011
The author's view of Greece was a bit harsh and one-sided. I didn't get through the first chapter. It seemed like this book was going in one direction, that is painting Greeks as arrogant people who look down on foreigners.
Profile Image for Yannis.
180 reviews
August 5, 2013
螠伪蟼 魏伪谓蔚喂 蟻慰渭蟺蔚蟼, 蟿慰蠀蟼 螘位位畏谓蔚蟼, 伪位位伪 渭蔚 蟿慰蟽慰 伪蟺慰位伪蠀蟽蟿喂魏伪 蠀蟺慰魏蔚喂渭蔚谓喂魏畏 伪位畏胃蔚喂伪. 螔蔚尾伪喂伪 蟺慰位位伪 蔚蠂慰蠀谓 伪位位伪尉蔚喂 伪蟺慰 蟿慰蟿蔚 蟺慰蠀 纬蟻伪蠁蟿畏魏蔚 蟿慰 尾喂尾位喂慰. 螛伪 蔚喂蠂蔚 蔚谓未喂伪蠁蔚蟻慰谓 谓伪 纬蟻伪蠄蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟿慰 Post persephone Pt.2 (伪谓 伪谓蟿蔚蠂蔚喂).
7 reviews
April 13, 2007
Loved the cultural observations. To quote from the book, "Greece's cross to bear is the Greeks." I couldn't agree more.
Profile Image for Erin.
55 reviews9 followers
April 22, 2014
This isn't a travelogue so much as an ethnography. It's a very dull travelogue, but very good compared to academic writing.
896 reviews19 followers
January 2, 2019
Within a matter of days, two friends sent me three books set in Greece. I started Winds of Crete, then dejectedly set it aside for Dinner with Persephone, which it has taken me two and a half months to finish.

Storace begins her memoir saying she lived in Athens, but I came away with the impression that Storace merely spent a year there. Storace duly visited museums and other sites, met with friends, wandered throughout the city and countryside, attended festivals, and shopped. Never once though did the first 300 or so pages suggest that Storace felt even a hint of the Greeks' most prominent characteristic--an unadulterated joy in life.

Indeed, feelings come into play only once Storace begins describing the Benaki family and the remainder of the book could be by another author. Storace clearly regards Penelope Benaki Delta as a cautionary example of a life distorted by cruel patriarchy, although the scene where the maid prevents the mother beating Penelope to death does not make matriarchy an appealing alternative. As well, four siblings, male and female, for whom there is no mention of abuse raises questions about relying on Penelope's version alone. However, this portion of the book is the only part in which Storace was fully engaged and in which she provides more than a cursory look at a piece of Greek history. That part ends with a jarring note. Throughout, Storace has referred to Penelope, but thrice on p. 354, Storace uses Delta in context clearly referring to Penelope, thereby seemingly erasing her from her own story.

Of WWII and the Civil War, Storace says nothing more than that the Greeks don't talk about it. Yet Storace is writing just a few years after amnesty, on which I found the Greeks to be most expressive.
Profile Image for okyrhoe.
301 reviews114 followers
July 17, 2015
I haven't finished the book yet, but so far I find it a worthwhile read.
It is comforting to know that the author is well versed in the whole of Greek history, not just the standard classics. Her references to all historic periods as well as to recent Greek literature and religion provide a more comprehensive view of the Greek temperament than most books about modern Greece (eg, the disappointing by Sofka Zinovieff).
It's a pity that the author doesn't provide adequate autobiographical information about herself at the beginning, I would have liked to know more about her.
Her criticism of the way Greek men sometimes behave towards Greek women can be misconstrued. Personally I agree with her on this point, even though I am not discouraged by it (as some other readers were, from what I see in the comments below).
And yet... There are some glaring errors of translation or transliteration which I fail to understand how they got past the editing process. Eg, Protonekrotafeio (as one word when in actuality it is two), "Everyday" (the Kathimerini newspaper, which is a "Daily"), mikraki (instead of the common diminuitive mikrouli/a), Mignon (the department store known as Minion), or even the (pseudonymous?) "kyrios Angellopaidi" (Angelopoulos is a better option - a common enough name, while Angellopaidis is nonexistent, at least in the phone book), to name a few.
264 reviews6 followers
January 20, 2013
A fairly good read, but a bit wordy! From Amazon: "I lived in Athens, at the intersection of a prostitute and a saint." So begins Patricia Storace's astonishing memoir of her year in Greece. Mixing affection with detachment, rapture with clarity, this American poet perfectly evokes a country delicately balanced between East and West.

Whether she is interpreting Hellenic dream books, pop songs, and soap operas, describing breathtakingly beautiful beaches and archaic villages, or braving the crush at a saint's tomb, Storace, winner of the Whiting Award, rewards the reader with informed and sensual insights into Greece's soul. She sees how the country's pride in its past coexists with profound doubts about its place in the modern world. She discovers a world in which past and present engage in a passionate dialogue. Stylish, funny, and erudite, Dinner with Persephone is travel writing elevated to a fine art--and the best book of its kind since Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi.

"Splendid. Storace's account of a year in Greece combines past and present, legend and fact, in an unusual and delightful whole. "
--Atlantic Monthly
Profile Image for Ting.
256 reviews2 followers
August 4, 2011
Well what can I say, I thought I would read this book to get an idea of what it would be like to travel in Greece in anticipation of my own travels, and am not impressed. It seems that no matter where the author went she was being asked for sexual favors or the honor of cleaning the houses and having sex with old men. She seems to portray the Greek populace as misogynistic men and subserviant women who think that being slapped around is an honor; a country confused by their place in history holding on for dear life to the greatness of Alexander the Great and the symbolism of the Greek Orthodox church. A book which simply portrays a country and culture uncomfortably straddling the east and west and never finding its own unique identity.
Profile Image for Elizabeth.
119 reviews8 followers
October 26, 2007
I loved this book. It was a healing balm to my soul. I read it while in Crete, and it's stories let me know that *I was not crazy*....that my reactions to some of the things I was seeing and hearing and feeling were not out of the ordinary. Greek folks can be very entertaining....they are very, very hospitable, but sometimes that very hospitality becomes stifling. You *have to* accept that hospitality! In the way the host is giving it! You have an obligation!

I have looked for more books like this one, or even another by the same author, to no avail. I truly enjoyed this book, every bit of it. It shows both the glory of Greek culture, as well as it's seedy parts.
Profile Image for Liz Logan.
685 reviews4 followers
September 27, 2015
This book was well written, but a bit longer than it needed to be. The descriptions were spectacular, but at times the book delved much too deeply into history without being as personable as many travel narratives are. As a result the book is quite dry making it difficult to keep reading without stopping. Because of this, it took me much longer than it should have to finish this book even though I enjoyed the language she used to describe what she was seeing.
Profile Image for Chris.
290 reviews20 followers
October 8, 2022
DINNER WITH PERSEPHONE
By Patricia Storace.

Greece, as the Greeks do not tire of reminding us, was the cradle of Western arts and sciences, the wellspring of our civilization. Generations of schoolchildren have been taught to revere this ancient splendour, but Greece and the Greeks as they are now have not featured very largely in the curriculum. Those who have written about the country have usually been most interested in the traces of the past, remnants of a world that saw its apogee two and a half millenniums ago.

''Dinner With Persephone'' goes a long way toward redressing the balance. Patricia Storace, an American poet who spent a year in Greece, is as interested in the present as in the past, as vividly expressive when describing the contents of a shop window on an Athens street, or the nature of contemporary Greek nationalism, as she is when talking about the ancient rituals of the Orthodox Church or how Dionysus brought the gift of wine to Naxos. Nothing escapes Ms. Storace. Her powers of observation are equalled only by her faculty for the swift weaving of reflection and association. This is a book in which one thing is constantly leading to another.

On Andros, walking round one of the defensive stone towers that feature so largely in the landscape and bear witness to centuries of civil strife -- ''the architecture of vendetta,'' as the author puts it -- she notices the empty space over a main door, where the family coat of arms would have been displayed. This brings her, by an instant leap, into a series of conflicting notions: family as murderous clan, family as the unit of ideal community, the innocent harshness of landscape, the deliberate harshness of these human habitations.

It is a method she employs throughout. Direct physical description is immediately clothed, and the clothing takes a variety of forms: contemporary reference, classical anecdote, historical parallel, snippet of myth. There is a keen sensibility at work here, and a likably eager intelligence. Sometimes, however, this very eagerness, the desire to make a telling point, leads to strain or contrivance. While still on Andros, visiting a village called Menites, a place ''caught in a green grotto like light in an emerald,'' Ms. Storace is struck by the abundant spring waters, gushing up from the darkness below like a kind of resurrection. Making another instant leap, she is moved by the thought that Persephone, in her seasonal release from the underworld, chose earth to return to, not heaven. A point is being made here about the blessedness, the sacral quality, of our earth. But it was from earth, after all, and not heaven, that Persephone was snatched; without her return there, it would be difficult to find much meaning in the myth.

''Dinner With Persephone'' is a mosaic of a book about the author's stay in Greece, a complex of observation, impression and historical reference. It is informative without being in the least pretentious or stodgy. Ms. Storace's use of the present tense, coupled with her unflagging appetite for details, gives a strong charge of immediacy. The determination to leave no stone unturned occasionally seems over dutiful or hectic. Ms. Storace cannot buy orange juice at the kiosk on the corner without giving us a list of the magazines and newspapers displayed there.

But these are minor irritations. The book succeeds brilliantly in conveying what must surely be the primary experience of anyone who spends time in Greece: the tensions between past and present, East and West -- a haunting sense of continuity that is at the same time a poignant feeling of change and loss. The Greeks themselves are imbued with the sense of these tensions, and another considerable achievement of ''Dinner With Persephone'' is the sensitive and perceptive treatment the author gives them, the way she allows them to speak for themselves, which they are peculiarly willing to do, the Greek sense of national identity being at the same time tenacious and insecure.

It helps too, of course, that Greeks are traditionally well disposed toward foreigners, though mass tourism must have blunted this attitude a bit. When I lived in Greece in the 1960's, I once had the rather embarrassing experience of being led by a complete stranger to the front of a long queue, past people who had been waiting a long time, with the only explanation -- received without protest -- that ''eine xenos,'' ''he is a foreigner.''

Ms. Storace's sharp eye for character and gift for an illuminating phrase are additional pleasures. An American businessman, a guest at a lavish wedding reception in Athens, looks as if he has had ''plastic surgery of the soul.'' One of the most effective indirect comments I have read in some time comes when the author, listening to the complacent intellectual dishonesties of a truly dreadful Greek icon painter, watches a butterfly alight on a brightly printed towel and open and close its wings under the illusion that it has settled on a flower.
Profile Image for Tammy.
355 reviews
September 3, 2019
It took me half a year to read what I thought would be a light travel memoir. It's dense, and if you know nothing about Greece or Greek culture, it is even denser. Part of what made this book challenging for me was its inconsistency 鈥� some chapters were 40 pages retelling a classic story and others were three pages long about her experiences at a dance club. I was never quite sure what I was sitting down to read.

As a teacher of international students, I always find it fascinating reading about other cultures, and this book is full of that. Patricia Storace has encyclopedic knowledge of Greece, its language, and its history. That is both fascinating and incredibly dull at times, depending on your interests.

This book is not endless raptures about her year in Greece. It feels like a balanced, detached portrayal. Greece sounds beautiful and full of machismo. It appears to be both patriotic and insecure. Highly religious and knows how to throw a party. Storace does an amazing job highlighting the dualities of Greece and showing how an American might experience those dualities.

This book was published in 1996, so I have no idea how modern Greek culture may have changed in the past 20-something years. Has the internet affected the youngest generation and it鈥檚 perception of women, or is feminism still a unicorn?

I have mixed feelings about visiting Greece from this book. On the one hand, its cultural emphasis on hospitality is repeated throughout the text, as is its beauty. On the other hand, she also tells of resentment toward foreigners, infrastructure issues, and sexual harassment of women. Hmmm.

Because of the density of the book, I wouldn't recommend it to the casual reader. However, if you really love history or Greece or are curious about either, this book is a fountain of knowledge and is told from a familiar perspective.



Profile Image for Siel Ju.
Author听5 books103 followers
September 8, 2022
鈥淗ere the initial glance is harsh, probing, prolonged; a smile has to be earned, there is no assumption that just your existence can be valued by a smile. There may be no reason to smile at your existence.鈥� So warns American poet Patricia, whose memoir recounts a year she spent in Greece back in the 90s. I鈥檇 picked up this book in hopes of learning about Greek culture before arriving in Athens 鈥� though instead of charming me as I鈥檇 hoped, it frightened me.

Why? Patricia describes getting harassed 鈥� a lot. I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 what she鈥檇 have called her experience then 鈥� in fact in the text she glosses over everything with a laugh and a shrug and an extended literary metaphor 鈥� but it鈥檚 what it would be called now. A large man chases her through a bookstore, demanding a kiss on the lips. A bank officer laughs gratuitously while licking her passport photo.
4 reviews
July 2, 2020
As an American who has traveled extensively in Greece, I find that the author 鈥済ets鈥� modern Greece. Readers who haven鈥檛 spent time with native Greeks can鈥檛 fully grasp the length of the shadow that the country鈥檚 past casts over its present, and those immersed in the post-Enlightenment Western European tradition will struggle to understand a people for whom the sacred and the secular co-exist so comfortably. She aptly describes Greece as neither Western nor Eastern Europe but rather Oriental Europe, melding influences from both while remaining uniquely distinctive. I do wonder how different her perspective would be today, as Greece has undergone some significant changes and challenges in the 25 years since she lived there.
315 reviews2 followers
April 29, 2019
Very insightful book about an American woman traveling all over Greece for a year. Lots of descriptions of the different regions in Greece, the imagery of the smells, the scenery, the animals, the towns were exceptional. We spent some time on the Cyclades Islands last year and her descriptions brought back many fond memories. We are returning to Greece (Crete only) soon and I enjoyed reading about that island as well. The author also weaves in a LOT of details about Greece's troubled history - I learned a lot about surrounding countries and their influence on modern Greece. Great book if you are interested in Greek history & culture. Beautifully written.
3 reviews
October 12, 2021
This is not a travelogue. The author tried to be a modern philosopher & I guess going to Greece was a natural fit for her discourse.

The problem throughout the book is that she has nothing positive to say about Greece or its people. She points out too often that it was 19th century Western Europeans who informed the world and modern greeks of their ancient past. The modern Greeks come across as unethical, violent, misogynistic barbarians,

I learned nothing culturally interesting about Greek. The longest and most thorough chapter was about long dead Penelope Delta, which added no value to the book.

I honestly do not know what was the purpose of this book.



Profile Image for Olivia.
457 reviews24 followers
March 26, 2020
2.5 stars. Oh my word, I finally finished this book. The prose is thoughtful and artful, and some of Storace's observations stopped me in my tracks. But these 400 pages seemed interminable without clear characters to carry us through; it's Storace's account, but I never felt like I got to know her, let alone those in her inner circle. It felt like page after page after page of individual vignette. Interesting or charming enough as one-offs, but tedious as an entire book.
6 reviews
December 2, 2020
Some good insights into Greece here. Some well-written passages. But BOY does the author have a high opinion of herself. Every single Greek man seems unable to resist her. It seems so insulting how she makes out they are like animals trying to force themselves on her at every turn.
She also comes out with some of the most implausible dialogue, shoe-horning her long-winded thoughts into other people's mouths.
Greece is a magical country. Was it captured here though? I'm not sure.
Profile Image for LeeAnn.
377 reviews9 followers
September 6, 2018
I admit I didn鈥檛 quite finish this book. I picked it up because we are going to Athens. I loved her descriptions of the people, sights and sounds. But it got too wordy for me and dove into a lot of history and/or mythology and I got bored. I was just wanting info that would be helpful for our trip. Wish I could have stuck with it more.
Profile Image for Tracy Taylor.
129 reviews1 follower
November 13, 2019
This book made me possibly rethink my dreams to visit Greece one day. I was literally appalled at the insulting, even cruel treatment of Greek women, and women in general, by Greek men that is portrayed in it. Though the country itself sounds very beautiful, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable visiting there now. The book is very well written though, and even poetic.
Profile Image for scarlettraces.
2,991 reviews20 followers
September 12, 2022
This is a really beautifully thoughtful book and I'm not sure whether the last miracle of a chapter made me overcome my aversion to the society described. Probably one to resign myself to being a tourist in, I feel like I could probably do a pretty good Mary Stewart and other writers of 60s romance memorial tour.
Profile Image for Sally Bookworm.
32 reviews
October 15, 2018
I read this book quite a while ago, and although it was quite good I found myself- as someone who lives in Greece- getting irritated by the constant dig at the greeks. I finished the book but was left feeling quite insulted and indignant on the greeks behalf.
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