surprised by joy

of love, war and a mandolin

I was initially reluctant to pick up Captain Corelli's Mandolin, fearing a soppy war-time love story, but it's a "wonderful, hynoptic novel of fabulous scope and tremendous iridescent charm" to quote Joseph Heller, who wrote Catch-22 . After all the book jacket says, "and you can quote me"! Louis De Bernieres is astonishingly funny, and his words slip between joy and grief and mythology and history, politics and.. I don't know, pscyhology? Oh, how to put it? It mayn't be the bestest book I've read, but it's the first wonder since Brideshead Revisited I think. Which perhaps reflects on how much reading I've done. But Captain Corelli's Mandolin? Who would have believed it!

posted by Shi Ning @ 17:40