I adored this book. I fell in love with all the words and the beautiful way they all fit together.

But, I do need to say, all the people that I recommended the book to, and the people that I know read the book, did not feel at all the same way.

In addition, the movie was all wrong.


Here is what I wrote about the book when I first read it:

An intelligent, heart pounding, gut wrenching book about a small island in Greece in World War 2. The island is occupied by the fascist Italians and some of Hitler's Nazis.

The story is about the island, it's people, the events during and after the war. It is also a story of forbidden love, loss and the extreme love of friendships.

Excellent!

Captain Corelli's Mandolin has, unfortunately, become victim to it's own success. It has become one of those books that anyone who is anyone has read and so nobody now wants to read for fear of being a fashion victim. It even features in Notting Hill, Hugh Grant is reading it at the very end of the film when he and Julia Roberts are sitting in the garden. However, don't let this put you off - it's a brilliant book.

The story, briefly, is a typical love story.During the 2nd World War, the inhabitants of a small greek island, Cephalonia, have their lives disturbed by the arrival of an invading Italian army. The main characters we are concerned with are the local doctor, Iannis, and his daughter, Pelagia, they are forced to billet the commander of the Italian army, Captain Antonio Corelli, in their home. The islanders do everything they can to make life difficult for the Italians, forming a quiet sort of resistance group, and Pelagia does her bit by making life uncomfortable for Captain Corelli. Despite their natural resistance to an invader, Dr Iannis finds a kindred spirit in Corelli and they develop a mutual respect. Iannis is a poet at heart, he is working on a History of Cephallonia and Corelli too is a natural poet. Corelli is naturally averse to a life in the army, he is a musician (playing the mandolin of the title) who wants nothing more from life than to play and write music. He is not a natural military leader, preferring to organise his men to sing opera than to set patrols, but he gains their respect through his strong character.

We don't meet Corelli till half way through the book but he is instantly likeable and the electricity between him and Pelagia can't be missed.

What is it about this book that makes it so brilliant? The odd-ball characters, like the strongman Megalo Velisarios or Father Arsenios the overweight priest?;is it the wonderful descriptions of the Greek Island of Cephalonia?; is it the love/hate relationship between Corelli and Pelagia?

Louis de Bernieres has a wonderful style of writing, interspersing the main thread of the story with what seem at first sight to be unconnected anecdotes. In this book these anecdotes centre around Prime Minister Metaxas of Greece, Mussolini and a soldier named Guercio amongst Saints and madmen!

These sidetrackings initially deterred my mum from reading this book - after I had read it and raved to her that she "had to read it" but if you take them at face value, eventually you begin to see their significance to the story. It's a bit like life, I guess, no one story exists in isolation, de Bernieres seems to say, everything is influenced by what has happened in the past or what is happening elsewhere in the world. "No man is an island" John Donne said, and even on the island of Cepphalonia, where things seem not to have changed since the time of St Gerasimos, the outside world encroaches and people are effected by the events outside their own sphere of existence.

Read this book and you will be caught up by the story of Corelli and Pelagia and you will feel the warm Greek sun on your face. However I'm sure you will never imagine Nicholas Cage as Captain Corelli.

Sul filo di una scrittura semplice e immediata si dipana un romanzo assai completo.
Il ritmo è incalzante fino alla fine, i personaggi si fanno amare (sarà perché a tratti mi ha ricordato L'amore ai tempi del colera?), l'ambientazione storica e geografica ben curata, la devastazione della guerra assolutamente realistica (ora che ci penso, un po' mi ha ricordato anche La Ciociara).
Unico difetto: verso il finale l'autore prende ad andare un poco di corsa. Per tutto il resto, non c'è che da ribadire che la guerra tira fuori il peggio dell'uomo, ma fa uscire anche il meglio dalla letteratura.

I think I'm going to cry.
I really can't read another war anything soon.
This book is beautiful, the story while overly slow in parts, is beautiful. Then the history of the war comes in and you just feel cold and numb, how can people be so cruel?
And the years those two lovebirds could have had!! WHY?!

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

DNF @56%

*sigh*

It is with a heavy literary heart that I write this pseudo-review. The truth is, I don't often abandon books. Even if I'm having a hard time getting through a novel, I'll push through in search of redemptive qualities. Indeed, I've read many a book that was a challenge to get through, but I found myself praising it by its end for reframing the journey. I've also read absolute turds that had me regretting the time I spent under the author's sway.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin is not a terrible novel, but it is one I have no interest in continuing.

If I feel a sense of shame anytime that I give up a book, then my shame is doubled by the fact that this book was recommended to me by one of my favourite Goodreads friends, Kevin Ansbro. Kevin's review, which I took in again prior to my abandonment, highlights many parts of the book that excited me prior to my own reading. I offer it as an alternative to what follows.

I have an immense respect for the type of story de Bernières is telling with Captain Corelli's Mandolin. This WWII-era novel has an immense cast of characters who fall on both sides of the Italian-German invasion of the Greek island of Cephallonia. There are many characters and passages that I loved, but they were all too often bogged down by what became regular ventures to history class.

For many readers, I'm sure the detail into which de Bernières ventures will light the mind aflame. However, I couldn't help but breathe a heavy sigh and prepare myself to read what often felt like nonfiction with overly indulgent writing. Not all chapters do a deep-dive into this type of historical detail, and they shine all the more for it. The character-based moments are the ones that worked best for me, but they were too few and far-between for me to ever feel like I was getting my money's worth. I had every intention of finishing this novel off until I opened it up tonight to read a chapter that was one such historical outpouring. I set the book down and knew that I could push through, but I also knew that if I didn't love the book by now, it would be more of a chore than pleasure.

I have no doubt that this is a great novel, but it is not the type of book that I love to read. It reminded me too much of the parts I didn't enjoy in Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Both books share a sense of immense scope because they handle a wide cast of characters over an extended time period. But I wasn't captured by de Bernières' writing the way I was with Marquez. It might simply be that the style in which both these books are written are just not my type of read. For that reason, I'm going to shelve it in favour of some stuff that I've been dying to read all year long.

This is not exactly an admission of total defeat. Indeed, this is a book that requires a bit more of my time and mental effort than I am able to provide at this time. That does not mean that I won't find my way back to de Bernières' eventually, it is just that I am not currently able to enjoy it.

Kevin, old-chap, I apologize for literary cowardice, but am more than pleased to have made the attempt. Your recommendation was appreciated even though the novel didn't turn out to be my cup of tea. Don't let this turn you off future recommendations, I'd love to try again with another book!

2,5

P.S. Except for the names, characters and the basic setting, this book bears no similarity to the film version of the same.

I just finished reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin, an award winning book and rightly so, by Louis de Bernieres. The story is about love and loss and the ultimate survival of human spirit and how the worst of times bring out the best in us and also the worst. This inspiring and very informative tale is of a strong woman, Pelagia, living with her father Dr. Iannis, a compassionate healer and rationalist. Set in the backdrop of the second world war, this story will make you cry and lose faith in humanity only to be reinstated later. Like Captain Corelli's music this story is poetic in its highs and lows strumming across the perfect detailed descriptions unfolding the plot and tying the elements together perfectly in the end.
Those who have read 'A thousand splendid suns' by Khalid Hosseini will like reading it and may find certain similarities in the grimness of war; however, the infectious happiness and enthusiasm and hope it fills you up with at the end, unlike the former will make it a long but enjoyable read. For those who cannot deal with grief, avoid reading it but with a warning that you will miss out on a very wonderful experience if you do so. Like certain experiences that become a part of you, this book too has the potential to become a part of you forever.

First off...I don't know why this says the title is "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" when I'm staring at the book and it's clearly "Corelli's Mandolin." The "Captain" was added for the movie, but I can't find a correct link for the purposes of Goodreads.
First off, let me state that the movie was terrible, so don't go by that. Give this book a chance! It will make you laugh/cry/sigh/think. It really is in my top 5 books of all time. It was a really beautiful story set against the backdrop of WWII. I love how much it made me laugh. Don't get me wrong, it's not a laugh riot through and through, but what de Bernieres does exceptionally well is make you laugh when you are least expecting to. :) I. Love. This. Book. Is that coming across? ;)

Funny story: My friend, Anke, who is German, was in town when the movie came out and we were trying to decide what to go see and she stated that she liked Nicholas Cage, so we opted for that. Well, I am an idiot. I had completely forgotten that this book is not at all kind to the Germans (justifiably). While the movie was awful, it was not made any better by my extreme discomfort at basically bringing up a major blight on my very good and kind friend's national history for two hours. While *those* Germans made bad choices, she had nothing to do with it. I felt awful! :( But, she forgave me, because she's cool like that. :)

This book had so much charm that I would occasionally lose sight of how serious it was. I would be thinking of it as lighthearted and then there would be a chapter or two about the stark brutality of war. I enjoyed this book but I have rarely cried so hard.

Highly recommended.

A really great novel ... but gee, I hated that last chapter. It seemed to ruin the whole novel for me!

Drugi put citana knjiga. Ono cega se sjecam bila je ljubavna prica i njezini glavni i sporedni protagonisti, a sada i znam zasto. Ostalo nije vrijedno sjecanja. :P
Realno, 200 stranica previse!