Day 260 – Mandras never did read that book (pg 232)

In the interest of achieving my goal, more than half of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, was read to me by Michael Maloney. I had never ‘read’ a book on tape, until necessity pointed me in such a direction.

The story was wonderful, the book on tape, a revelation. What began as a way to try and cheat, has introduced me to something I may not have found otherwise. It’s quite freeing too. Even though it takes longer to listen to the story than to read it, I was able to get on with cooking and cleaning while ‘reading’, fantastic!

To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to this book and wasn't quite sure why I had picked it up. All I knew of it was a short trailer I had seen for the film adaptation starring Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz. Thankfully it was nothing like it! It is not so much a love story, as a story about a group of very different, very interesting characters whose actions are all intertwined.

Captain Corelli himself does not appear in the story until halfway through, which didn’t bother me at all. All the characters are fantastic. That's not to say Captain Corelli is an uninteresting character, he is wonderful.

The story is set mainly on the Greek Island of Cephalonia during the Italian and German occupation in World War II. Given that my fiancée is Greek, I delighted in recognising the few Greek words used, and was thoroughly amused by the characters and their way of life.

It is a big story, with a lot of history and, like I said, many characters. I think perhaps listening to much of this book enabled me to better understand and keep track of all the characters and goings on, than if I had been reading it myself.

After setting a rather lovely pace through most of the story, the end did seem to gallop through big plot points including incidents involving much meaningless (and historically correct) death and destruction. None-the-less I grew quite attached to the crazy, wise, witty, engaging and humorous inhabitants of Cephalonia, and was sorry to leave them and their Island behind.

21 days remaining, 9 books to go