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Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese
The Mani, at the tip of Greece's-and Europe's-southernmost promontory, is one of the most isolated regions of the world. Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people's daily lives.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene," bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language's finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.
Mani is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor's celebrated Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene," bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language's finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.
Mani is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor's celebrated Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.
358 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
About the author
Patrick Leigh Fermor
52 books528 followersSir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor, OBE, DSO was of English and Irish descent. After his stormy schooldays, followed by his walk across Europe to Constantinople, he lived and travelled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago acquiring a deep interest in languages and remote places.
He was an army officer who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II.
He lived partly in Greece in a house he designed with his wife Joan in an olive grove in the Mani, and partly in Worcestershire.
He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer".
He was an army officer who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II.
He lived partly in Greece in a house he designed with his wife Joan in an olive grove in the Mani, and partly in Worcestershire.
He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
July 21, 2014
This isn’t travel writing so much as it’s landscape impressionism, the language of the babbling water of History bubbling up through porous limestone river beds of Time, spatial movement crosscutting temporal sedimentations, revealing striated depth-rings, human experience as the boring-through of such mountain-beings as Taygetus and Parnon in order to listen for the dying resonance of distant tones echoing in empty village squares, whose peals can be found recorded in obscure books in riddle tongues, the chewing of name and place-name like some sweet stone in the mouth until washed down by the pleasant burning of grappa, and the retracing of these to their source-bell, high in some dark obscure Byzantine tower, where a gatekeeper might wash the dust and sand from centuries-old frescoes, revealing blue Orpheus embracing his lyre or Europa astride Zeus the bull, where the flit of starlings in their evening arcs signify more than the woosh of their wings: they overfly silent goatherds on a darkening hill side and eye their flocks, nipping at bushes of wild thyme that scent the Lacedaemonian air along with the cleanest insurgence of sea salt being carried on a westerly wind; and all of this rendered into Patrick Leigh Fermor’s signature prose-poetry, that wanders and wanders the limits of the English language but is forever restlessly searching and moving on. Read him.
~
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August 28, 2019
Patrick Leigh Fermor, his future wife, Joan, and friend Xan Fielding walked through the rugged Mani region of southern Greece in the 1950s, before sealed roads, wireless and tourism had begun to open it to influences from the outside world. World War II, the end of the Greek Civil War and defeat of Communism were in the very recent past.
Fermor was a passionate Hellenist. He found ‘all of Greece absorbing and rewarding, [with] …hardly a rock or a stream without a battle or a myth, a miracle or a peasant anecdote or a superstition; and talk and incident, nearly all of it odd or memorable, thicken around the traveller’s path at every step’.
Instead of following his Greek journeys’ paths, as he had originally intended, he allowed himself to write about anything that caught his interest, curiosity or delight as he went from place to place through the mountains, visiting tiny villages; exploring ancient, Byzantine and modern history; connecting places to mythological sites; tracing old and recent feuds; talking, listening and recording.
His chapter headings sometimes, but not always, help anticipate where his thoughts will go. Into the Deep Mani, Dark Towers, a Warlike Aristocracy and the Maniots of Corsica, give a fair idea that he will write about the terrain and the people he meets; the unusual style and pattern of villages dominated by towers, reflecting deadly feuds and a society with a traditionally high level of violence.
Others only acquire meaning as you read the chapter: Confabulation in Layia: Cyprus and Mrs Gladstone, or An Amphibian Matriarchy and a Maniot Poet, for instance.
For me the most memorable chapter is Ikons. It’s a wonderful meditation on Christian religious art in the Byzantine tradition, the way it developed then ossified after the fall of Byzantium, and the differences in style and representation between the art of the Christian east and west. I so desperately wanted to see what he was talking about that I have begun to read, as opposed to look at, two excellent books on icons already on our shelves and am seeing what I thought were familiar images in a new light.
At times I found his language so dense and his choice of words so obscure that I lost track of what he was writing about, and had to go back to re-read after checking a word meaning. ‘Haruspicate’, for instance, is one I have never come across before and am unlikely to ever use.
Text below comes from the New York Review of Books website:
https://www.nyrb.com/products/mani?va...
The Mani, at the tip of Greece’s—and Europe’s—southernmost promontory, is one of the most isolated regions of the world. Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people’s daily lives.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene,” bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language’s finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.
PRAISE
His greatest book, Mani, was about a journey through that little-known and, at the time, archaic region....[He] travelled [sic] simply, staying with fishermen and farmers, which enabled him to capture the essence of the region....Almost every page has its own literary tour de force, often with intimidating displays of learning and research mixed with fantasy, imagination and acute descriptions of the scene itself.
— Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Geographical
Patrick Leigh Fermor has written great travel books besides Roumeli and Mani, but I like to think that his extraordinary style is especially well suited to the subject of Greece, that the beautiful cragginess and almost blinding brilliance of his prose correspond particularly to that country’s rugged, dazzled landscapes. Here Fermor establishes an ideal of travel writing: no one responds to a people and a place with more erudition and sensitivity.
— Benjamin Kunkel
A really beautiful book of travel in an almost wholly unknown part of Europe, among people who still belong largely to the tough simple Middle Ages; and it shows not only their charm and vigor, but the delights which still await the explorer of Greece.
— Gilbert Highet
Mani and Roumeli: two of the best travel books of the century.
— Financial Times
Fermor was a passionate Hellenist. He found ‘all of Greece absorbing and rewarding, [with] …hardly a rock or a stream without a battle or a myth, a miracle or a peasant anecdote or a superstition; and talk and incident, nearly all of it odd or memorable, thicken around the traveller’s path at every step’.
Instead of following his Greek journeys’ paths, as he had originally intended, he allowed himself to write about anything that caught his interest, curiosity or delight as he went from place to place through the mountains, visiting tiny villages; exploring ancient, Byzantine and modern history; connecting places to mythological sites; tracing old and recent feuds; talking, listening and recording.
His chapter headings sometimes, but not always, help anticipate where his thoughts will go. Into the Deep Mani, Dark Towers, a Warlike Aristocracy and the Maniots of Corsica, give a fair idea that he will write about the terrain and the people he meets; the unusual style and pattern of villages dominated by towers, reflecting deadly feuds and a society with a traditionally high level of violence.
Others only acquire meaning as you read the chapter: Confabulation in Layia: Cyprus and Mrs Gladstone, or An Amphibian Matriarchy and a Maniot Poet, for instance.
For me the most memorable chapter is Ikons. It’s a wonderful meditation on Christian religious art in the Byzantine tradition, the way it developed then ossified after the fall of Byzantium, and the differences in style and representation between the art of the Christian east and west. I so desperately wanted to see what he was talking about that I have begun to read, as opposed to look at, two excellent books on icons already on our shelves and am seeing what I thought were familiar images in a new light.
At times I found his language so dense and his choice of words so obscure that I lost track of what he was writing about, and had to go back to re-read after checking a word meaning. ‘Haruspicate’, for instance, is one I have never come across before and am unlikely to ever use.
Text below comes from the New York Review of Books website:
https://www.nyrb.com/products/mani?va...
The Mani, at the tip of Greece’s—and Europe’s—southernmost promontory, is one of the most isolated regions of the world. Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people’s daily lives.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene,” bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language’s finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.
PRAISE
His greatest book, Mani, was about a journey through that little-known and, at the time, archaic region....[He] travelled [sic] simply, staying with fishermen and farmers, which enabled him to capture the essence of the region....Almost every page has its own literary tour de force, often with intimidating displays of learning and research mixed with fantasy, imagination and acute descriptions of the scene itself.
— Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Geographical
Patrick Leigh Fermor has written great travel books besides Roumeli and Mani, but I like to think that his extraordinary style is especially well suited to the subject of Greece, that the beautiful cragginess and almost blinding brilliance of his prose correspond particularly to that country’s rugged, dazzled landscapes. Here Fermor establishes an ideal of travel writing: no one responds to a people and a place with more erudition and sensitivity.
— Benjamin Kunkel
A really beautiful book of travel in an almost wholly unknown part of Europe, among people who still belong largely to the tough simple Middle Ages; and it shows not only their charm and vigor, but the delights which still await the explorer of Greece.
— Gilbert Highet
Mani and Roumeli: two of the best travel books of the century.
— Financial Times
December 24, 2023
Read for the second time while actually on the middle finger.. Mani that is.
In fact I'm spending Christmas in Mani, on the west coast at Alika to be exact, a couple of kilometres from Gerolimenas, visiting places that Fermor writes about.
Many of the stone towers have been renovated to smart holiday accommodation now, but other than that, the place is every bit as wild and desolate as Fermor describes. I look out my window now to the Evil Mountains.
I've been in Mani for ten days now, travelling the opposite way to Fermor, beginning in Gytheio, then down the east coast to Porto Kagio, and Cape Taernaron and the entrance to Hades.
This is a very special book to me.. Here's an example of why..
My photos and travelogue at my website, www.safe-return-doubtful.com
First Review..
These short November days see me immersed in inspirational travel books each of there locations competing for a place in my calendar for the following year. Its little wonder that a book from Patrick Leigh Fermor wins a place. In fact two do, the partner to this also, which I am yet to read, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.
The Mani is the middle of the three narrow peninsulas of the southern Peloponnese, 40 miles long and 75 years ago, almost inaccessible, except by sea. When Leigh Fermor first came here in 1951, it was by a intrepid mountain hike across the Taygetus range.
There's a considerable part of his writing dedicated to the rich history of the area. The detail of this will be better appreciated by me when I am there. For me, his writing is at its strongest when relating anecdotes gleaned from random and unscheduled meetings with the locals. So many years on and the chance of such meetings will no doubt be considerably less. Some remote communities take some time to change though, and it is these I will be seeking out.
And, one more quote to finish with..
In fact I'm spending Christmas in Mani, on the west coast at Alika to be exact, a couple of kilometres from Gerolimenas, visiting places that Fermor writes about.
Many of the stone towers have been renovated to smart holiday accommodation now, but other than that, the place is every bit as wild and desolate as Fermor describes. I look out my window now to the Evil Mountains.
I've been in Mani for ten days now, travelling the opposite way to Fermor, beginning in Gytheio, then down the east coast to Porto Kagio, and Cape Taernaron and the entrance to Hades.
This is a very special book to me.. Here's an example of why..
On the map the southern part of the Peloponnese looks like a misshapen tooth fresh torn from its gum with three peninsulas jutting southwards in jagged and carious roots. The central prong is formed by the Tayegtus mountains, which from their northern foothills in the heart of the Morea to their storm-beaten southern point, Cape Matapan, are roughly a hundred miles long. About half their length - seventy five miles on their western and forty five on their eastern flank and measuring fifty miles across - projects tapering into the sea. This is the Mani.
As the Taygetus range towers to eight thousand feet at the centre , subsiding to north and south in chasm after chasm, these distances as the crow flies can with equanimity be trebled and quadrupled and sometimes, when reckoning overland, multiplied tenfold.
Just as the inland Taygetus divides the Messenian from the Laconian plain, its continuation, the sea-washed Mani, divides the Aegean from the Ionian, and its wild cape, the ancient Taenarus and the entrance to Hades, is the southernmost point of Greece.
Nothing but the bleak Mediterranean, sinking below to enormous depths, lies between this spike of rock and the African sands and from this point the huge wall of the Taygetus, whose highest peaks bar the bare and waterless inferno of rock.
The Taygetus rolls in peak after peak to its southernmost tip, a huge pale grey bulk with nothing to interrupt its monotony.
My photos and travelogue at my website, www.safe-return-doubtful.com
First Review..
These short November days see me immersed in inspirational travel books each of there locations competing for a place in my calendar for the following year. Its little wonder that a book from Patrick Leigh Fermor wins a place. In fact two do, the partner to this also, which I am yet to read, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece.
The Mani is the middle of the three narrow peninsulas of the southern Peloponnese, 40 miles long and 75 years ago, almost inaccessible, except by sea. When Leigh Fermor first came here in 1951, it was by a intrepid mountain hike across the Taygetus range.
There's a considerable part of his writing dedicated to the rich history of the area. The detail of this will be better appreciated by me when I am there. For me, his writing is at its strongest when relating anecdotes gleaned from random and unscheduled meetings with the locals. So many years on and the chance of such meetings will no doubt be considerably less. Some remote communities take some time to change though, and it is these I will be seeking out.
And, one more quote to finish with..
These summer nights are short. Going to bed before midnight is unthinkable and talk, wine, moonlight and the warm air are often in league to defer it one, two or three hours more. It seems only a moment after falling asleep out of doors that dawn touches one gently on the shoulder, and, completely refreshed, up one gets, or creeps into the shade or indoors for another luxurious couple of hours. The afternoon is the time for real sleep: into the abyss one goes to emerge when the colours begin to revive and the world to breathe again about five o'clock, ready once more for the rigours and pleasures of late afternoon, the evening, and the night.
December 7, 2015
Paddy Fermor was never a tourist and only sometimes a traveler. For most of his journeying life (particularly in Greece), he was a serial dweller, inhabiting the paths, fields, streams, seashores, villages, and cities that he encountered like a native. Part of his comfort in discovering new places and people was due to his extraordinary facility with languages, but perhaps a greater part was due to his genuine interest in and curiosity about the people and places he visited. He traveled in the same four dimensions we all do, but his fourth dimension was very deep. He lived in the eternal now, but that present was informed and enriched by history going back to the mythic past and by speculative fantasies that looked to a future that never was but might have been. Equally at home with ancient texts, academic histories, and with the legends, stories, poetry, and folk beliefs drawn effortlessly from the mouths of his informants, Fermor synthesized some of this material into his descriptions as if he were writing an ethnography/history/archaeological report/architectural analysis/art appraisal/literary survey all rolled into one well-told tale. At times though, he was overwhelmed by the depth of his knowledge and launched into fascinating digressions on politics, ikons, demons, or cats. Whatever would not fit into the narrative or the digressions, he wistfully deferred to a later book. While his description of the Mani is fascinating and educational, the real joy of reading Fermor’s works is to experience Fermor interacting intensely with the people and places he encountered. His style of writing is not for everyone, and many will be put off by his erudite and sometimes obscure vocabulary, his almost obsessive attention to detail, and his far-ranging interests that continually distracted him from the linear narrative. But what I wouldn’t have given to sit under the umbrageous branches of a fig tree in an out-of-the-way Greek village at noon, gazing out on a brilliant sea, drinking an excellent retsina of the Attic variety, and listening to Paddy Fermor tell me stories!
January 20, 2015
The front cover photograph on this edition, a photographer’s arrangement of pixels, depicts a Shangri-La of hot, baked serenity. Scrubby vegetation, hazy azure seas stretching into the distance, and rock. Lots of rock. Ankle-snapping rock. Rock, which from a distance imitates the gnarled above-ground roots of a venerable aged English Oak, Quercus robur. The blurb on the back cover promises a “glorious fusion …” Atomic? Thankfully not. More of the ilk of the golden orb of the noon-day raising the literary temperature at the turn of every page? Or as PLF sees it, “The meridian dazzle erases the skyline and the hot rock underfoot seems the igneous flank of a planet embedded in still cocoons of blue space.” (p.201). Just what the travel agent ordered.
Some books I read with one hand, holding a sheaf of sticky page-markers; to catch curiosities I wish to revisit, mull over & look into further. My 1987 ppbk edition of PLF’s ”Mani”, now at last read from beginning to end, has sprouted a dense brush-like flourish of bright colour, right up to the point (p.271); where the force of the flowing current of these little sticky aid memoires instead began to hinder my progress. Overloaded, muddling one Greek God with another, I was losing sight of the wood for the trees; let alone the rocks for the water … and the entrance to Hades beckoned (pp. 130-132) for those interested in going straight there); whilst an athletic nanny goat with other ideas and a keen eye for sweeter nourishment leapt into a sycamore tree, making her way right up to the highest branches and the sweetest leaves. (p.167)
I marvelled too, at PLF’s unusually ‘sticky’ memory for unanticipated relationships; such as the kinship between the Courtney family at Powderham Castle, Exeter, Devon, England; and “Pierre de Courtenai, who, in 1218, was Frankish Emperor of Constantinople…”. My own general reading in this area has been considerably more plebian: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... ! Come to think of it, I don’t remember PLF mentioning so much as a single Mediterranean tortoise; though he does occasionally ask odd questions such as, “How many pogo-sticks still collect the dust in English attics?” (p.154)
The one map in this book, which precedes Chapter 1, is woefully short on the vast majority of the place-names that PLF mentions in his book, Worse still, he appears not to see any problem whatsoever with that. That infuriated me. Whole villages, towers, and landscapes came and went like Brigadoon. What border there may have been between Mani and the Deep Mani degenerated into a game of discerned guessing. Too frequently such cartographic reduction in excellence left me disorientated and adrift; not knowing what compass bearing I was on; let alone quite how far or near the next village was, and the contour lines to be climbed, with or without rope.
Is this the work of an awesome but unrefined conceit; or the work of a passionate ‘God’? PLF’s schoolmasters at The King’s School, Canterbury appear to have leaned towards the former view. In “Mani”, it is with frequent and garrulous brazen gusto, that PLF spares seemingly few opportunities not to deliver a master-class in the art of hyperbolic description; whether his subject be the gods of Greece, Christ Pantocrator (“ruler of all”), churches, buccaneers, solitary towers, pre-Christian rituals, the Underworld, usw. Near, inner, and far; whether it be to silly mid-off, square leg, or the boundary; PLF, displaying a charmed tendency to digress, bowls balls that glance off rocks & plummet into whirlpools whose breadth, depth, and disorientating force at times left me in a state of entertained breathlessness.
Wholly adverse to notions of economical and precise language, it was if PLF aimed to boast about a region of Greece he clearly and passionately loved; but didn’t want his readers to be so attracted that they should follow him and leave England. What then would he have made of my reading in a British broadsheet last weekend, of the published itinerary of a cruise ship calling in at Mani. Smooth tarmac? Minibuses? Coaches? I shuddered. Are the Maniots now to be (or have they already long since been) reduced to a tourist attraction, showing off their fish-traps, “a dazzling interplay of symmetrical parabolas”? (p.32), and knitting skills under a pomegranate tree (p.61). Such is the nature of bargains struck in hope and calculated expectation of reducing the brittleness of once a slender thread of life.
Loved it.
p.s. I had all but finished this book, when Nigeyb VERY helpfully pointed to an excellent essay by Daniel Mendelsohn (19 June 2014) in the NYRB at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi... PLF’s hyperactive insistence in soaring into a discussion of every butterfly of knowledge that flutters past him is both enlivened and tamed by the perspectives and thoughtful analysis that Mendelsohn offers. Ideally both would be bound in the same volume.
Some books I read with one hand, holding a sheaf of sticky page-markers; to catch curiosities I wish to revisit, mull over & look into further. My 1987 ppbk edition of PLF’s ”Mani”, now at last read from beginning to end, has sprouted a dense brush-like flourish of bright colour, right up to the point (p.271); where the force of the flowing current of these little sticky aid memoires instead began to hinder my progress. Overloaded, muddling one Greek God with another, I was losing sight of the wood for the trees; let alone the rocks for the water … and the entrance to Hades beckoned (pp. 130-132) for those interested in going straight there); whilst an athletic nanny goat with other ideas and a keen eye for sweeter nourishment leapt into a sycamore tree, making her way right up to the highest branches and the sweetest leaves. (p.167)
I marvelled too, at PLF’s unusually ‘sticky’ memory for unanticipated relationships; such as the kinship between the Courtney family at Powderham Castle, Exeter, Devon, England; and “Pierre de Courtenai, who, in 1218, was Frankish Emperor of Constantinople…”. My own general reading in this area has been considerably more plebian: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... ! Come to think of it, I don’t remember PLF mentioning so much as a single Mediterranean tortoise; though he does occasionally ask odd questions such as, “How many pogo-sticks still collect the dust in English attics?” (p.154)
The one map in this book, which precedes Chapter 1, is woefully short on the vast majority of the place-names that PLF mentions in his book, Worse still, he appears not to see any problem whatsoever with that. That infuriated me. Whole villages, towers, and landscapes came and went like Brigadoon. What border there may have been between Mani and the Deep Mani degenerated into a game of discerned guessing. Too frequently such cartographic reduction in excellence left me disorientated and adrift; not knowing what compass bearing I was on; let alone quite how far or near the next village was, and the contour lines to be climbed, with or without rope.
Is this the work of an awesome but unrefined conceit; or the work of a passionate ‘God’? PLF’s schoolmasters at The King’s School, Canterbury appear to have leaned towards the former view. In “Mani”, it is with frequent and garrulous brazen gusto, that PLF spares seemingly few opportunities not to deliver a master-class in the art of hyperbolic description; whether his subject be the gods of Greece, Christ Pantocrator (“ruler of all”), churches, buccaneers, solitary towers, pre-Christian rituals, the Underworld, usw. Near, inner, and far; whether it be to silly mid-off, square leg, or the boundary; PLF, displaying a charmed tendency to digress, bowls balls that glance off rocks & plummet into whirlpools whose breadth, depth, and disorientating force at times left me in a state of entertained breathlessness.
Wholly adverse to notions of economical and precise language, it was if PLF aimed to boast about a region of Greece he clearly and passionately loved; but didn’t want his readers to be so attracted that they should follow him and leave England. What then would he have made of my reading in a British broadsheet last weekend, of the published itinerary of a cruise ship calling in at Mani. Smooth tarmac? Minibuses? Coaches? I shuddered. Are the Maniots now to be (or have they already long since been) reduced to a tourist attraction, showing off their fish-traps, “a dazzling interplay of symmetrical parabolas”? (p.32), and knitting skills under a pomegranate tree (p.61). Such is the nature of bargains struck in hope and calculated expectation of reducing the brittleness of once a slender thread of life.
Loved it.
p.s. I had all but finished this book, when Nigeyb VERY helpfully pointed to an excellent essay by Daniel Mendelsohn (19 June 2014) in the NYRB at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi... PLF’s hyperactive insistence in soaring into a discussion of every butterfly of knowledge that flutters past him is both enlivened and tamed by the perspectives and thoughtful analysis that Mendelsohn offers. Ideally both would be bound in the same volume.
September 29, 2021
Ο Πάτρικ Λη, ένας πολυμαθέστατος, ευφυής και ευαίσθητος άνθρωπος, είναι από αυτές τις προσωπικότητες που θα ήθελες να κάτσεις μαζί τους από το χάραμα έως το σούρουπο να πίνετε τσίπουρα και να συζητάτε από τις ξερολιθιές παραπλεύρως έως τους Βογόμιλους και τα απομονωμένα νησιά της Πολυνησίας.
Η Μάνη δεν είναι ακριβώς ένα ταξιδιωτικό, με την έννοια πως δεν μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί ανά χείρας για να δεις τον τάδε πύργο ή να επισκεφτείς το δείνα αξιοθέατο. Είναι περισσότερο η αποτυπωμένη εμπειρία ενός κόσμου που χανόταν γοργά όπως τον εξερευνούσε ο Πάτρικ, λίγο πριν φτάσει η σύγχρονη εποχή με ραδιόφωνα και ασφαλτοστρωμένους δρόμους.
Φυσικά υπάρχουν τα αναγνωρίσιμα ονόματα των χωριών που επισκέφτηκε και οι οριακά οικείες μορφές που συνάντησε όμως σαστίζει κάποιος που επισκέπτεται τη σημερινή Μάνη με την αντιπαραβολή μισού αιώνα, βλέποντας μέσα από τον Φέρμορ έναν κόσμο άχρονο έως τότε.
Πάνω απ' όλα ο Πάτρικ Λη αφηνόταν ελεύθερος στους συνειρμούς που του έφερνε το κάθε τι που έβλεπε στο ταξίδι του, μέσα από ένα ρομαντικό πρίσμα και εμβαπτίζοντας τις σκέψεις του στην ευρύτατη πολυμάθειά του.
Η Μάνη δεν είναι ακριβώς ένα ταξιδιωτικό, με την έννοια πως δεν μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί ανά χείρας για να δεις τον τάδε πύργο ή να επισκεφτείς το δείνα αξιοθέατο. Είναι περισσότερο η αποτυπωμένη εμπειρία ενός κόσμου που χανόταν γοργά όπως τον εξερευνούσε ο Πάτρικ, λίγο πριν φτάσει η σύγχρονη εποχή με ραδιόφωνα και ασφαλτοστρωμένους δρόμους.
Φυσικά υπάρχουν τα αναγνωρίσιμα ονόματα των χωριών που επισκέφτηκε και οι οριακά οικείες μορφές που συνάντησε όμως σαστίζει κάποιος που επισκέπτεται τη σημερινή Μάνη με την αντιπαραβολή μισού αιώνα, βλέποντας μέσα από τον Φέρμορ έναν κόσμο άχρονο έως τότε.
Πάνω απ' όλα ο Πάτρικ Λη αφηνόταν ελεύθερος στους συνειρμούς που του έφερνε το κάθε τι που έβλεπε στο ταξίδι του, μέσα από ένα ρομαντικό πρίσμα και εμβαπτίζοντας τις σκέψεις του στην ευρύτατη πολυμάθειά του.
January 3, 2021
Fermor must be read slowly, you must savor this man's prose like a fine wine. To do otherwise makes his travelogues appear beset by constant interruptions, like listening to a wistful polymath with Alzheimer's recount their most recent Mediterranean holiday...I kid, I kid...Yet its these moments of literary digression that elevate his work into the pantheon of literature. Mani also recaptured a bit of the magic from A Time of Gifts after my muted reception to its sequel. Patrick hits a kind of sweet spot with the sun-drenched coasts of Greece, and his enthusiasm as always is unshakable as it is infectious for the culture and people he encounters. Not only one of the greatest travel writers, Fermor's prose is some of the best in the entirety of the English language. It should not be missed.
March 17, 2023
This book chronicles the travels of Patrick Leigh Fermor in the Mani peninsula of Southern Greece during the 12 years that followed the end of WWII. Although it won the 1959 Duff Cooper Prize, it is not nearly as good as either "A Time of Gifts" (1977) or "Between the Woods and the Water " (1986). Nonetheless "Mani" has most of the charms of these two later works and is well worth reading for anyone who enjoys Fermor's writing..
In "Mani" Fermor describes an extremely primitive society living in a very isolated region, remote not by its geographical location but by the lack of a road system for motorized vehicles. Fermor writes: "There was not a single school in Mani until the 1830s (i.e. after the Greek War of Independence) and it is without doubt the most backward part of Greece." (p. 154)
Mani as Fermor found it had not entered the era of modern technology. Spiritually, it was only half way into the Christian era as the beliefs in the pagan deities and sprites remained very strong: "The nereids, the oreads, the dryads, the hamadryads and the gorgons all survive transposed in the minds of the county Greeks. Pan himself is present." (p. 152) Dread of the 'Evil Eye' which figures prominently on the front cover of the book is universal.
Unfortunately much of the insight on folklore originates not with Fermor but from "Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion" (1910) written by Cambridge don John Cuthbert Lawson. Fermor, however, freely admits that he "leans" on Lawson and does at times challenge Lawson's conclusions.
What Fermor does do is incorporate Lawson's scholarly ethnology with his own life experience in Greece to present a total view of the Mani society. Fermor could easily read classic Attic Greek and Byzantine koine. He was extremely fluent in modern demotic Greek which he used most notably when as a British Special Operations officer he worked with Greek resistance fighters on Nazi-occupied Crete.
Fermor's thesis is that Mani never had the chance to modernize. The Byzantine Empire which ruled the region for twelve centuries was neglectful of its remote provinces while the Ottoman Turks who in 1453 succeeded the Byzantines consciously and deliberately kept Greece backward. The Republics and Kingdoms that followed after Greek won its independence in 1830 succeeded in modernizing the cities of Greece but neglected the rural areas none more so than the Mani peninsula.
Fermor notes the existence of a bitter political and cultural struggle between royalists and republicans in Greece which was not resolved until 1973 (well after the publication of "Mani") when the Republicans abolished the monarchy for a third and final time. One senses a certain royalist sympathy in Fermor but in his book he generally avoids taking sides in the contest between the two Greek factions.
In one of his best chapters "Ikons", Fermor presents thesis that the Greek Orthodox faith is the finest form of Christianity having the great virtue of being true to early Christianity which was a synthesis of Judaism and Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy. The two dimensional conventions of Byzantine (Greek Orthodox) art reinforce the logical and rigorist aspect of Christianity whereas the three dimensional paintings of the Renaissance pushed Latin Christianity towards maudlin sentimentality. As a Roman Catholic, I disagree but am forced to recognize that Fermor argues his case brilliantly.
Overall, "Mani" is great fun and a fine addition to the Fermor corpus. I would live to give it more than 3 stars but there are too many borrowings and too many repetitions to justify a higher rating.
In "Mani" Fermor describes an extremely primitive society living in a very isolated region, remote not by its geographical location but by the lack of a road system for motorized vehicles. Fermor writes: "There was not a single school in Mani until the 1830s (i.e. after the Greek War of Independence) and it is without doubt the most backward part of Greece." (p. 154)
Mani as Fermor found it had not entered the era of modern technology. Spiritually, it was only half way into the Christian era as the beliefs in the pagan deities and sprites remained very strong: "The nereids, the oreads, the dryads, the hamadryads and the gorgons all survive transposed in the minds of the county Greeks. Pan himself is present." (p. 152) Dread of the 'Evil Eye' which figures prominently on the front cover of the book is universal.
Unfortunately much of the insight on folklore originates not with Fermor but from "Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion" (1910) written by Cambridge don John Cuthbert Lawson. Fermor, however, freely admits that he "leans" on Lawson and does at times challenge Lawson's conclusions.
What Fermor does do is incorporate Lawson's scholarly ethnology with his own life experience in Greece to present a total view of the Mani society. Fermor could easily read classic Attic Greek and Byzantine koine. He was extremely fluent in modern demotic Greek which he used most notably when as a British Special Operations officer he worked with Greek resistance fighters on Nazi-occupied Crete.
Fermor's thesis is that Mani never had the chance to modernize. The Byzantine Empire which ruled the region for twelve centuries was neglectful of its remote provinces while the Ottoman Turks who in 1453 succeeded the Byzantines consciously and deliberately kept Greece backward. The Republics and Kingdoms that followed after Greek won its independence in 1830 succeeded in modernizing the cities of Greece but neglected the rural areas none more so than the Mani peninsula.
Fermor notes the existence of a bitter political and cultural struggle between royalists and republicans in Greece which was not resolved until 1973 (well after the publication of "Mani") when the Republicans abolished the monarchy for a third and final time. One senses a certain royalist sympathy in Fermor but in his book he generally avoids taking sides in the contest between the two Greek factions.
In one of his best chapters "Ikons", Fermor presents thesis that the Greek Orthodox faith is the finest form of Christianity having the great virtue of being true to early Christianity which was a synthesis of Judaism and Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy. The two dimensional conventions of Byzantine (Greek Orthodox) art reinforce the logical and rigorist aspect of Christianity whereas the three dimensional paintings of the Renaissance pushed Latin Christianity towards maudlin sentimentality. As a Roman Catholic, I disagree but am forced to recognize that Fermor argues his case brilliantly.
Overall, "Mani" is great fun and a fine addition to the Fermor corpus. I would live to give it more than 3 stars but there are too many borrowings and too many repetitions to justify a higher rating.
July 22, 2015
Mani is the very southern part of Greece, an isolated peninsular surrounded by the Aegean and Ionian seas, and made more remote by the Taygettus mountain range. It is a harsh environment too; precious little grows here because of its rugged and barren landscape.
This isolation also means that the region has maintained much stronger links to its ancient past too. The myths and legends of history feel so much more alive here than in other parts of Greece. The language harks back to old dialects, and even thought the orthodox church has a strong influence, pagan and old habits still exist.
Mixed in with Fermor’s travels around Mani are several chapters on the history of the land and the people. Some of it is fascinating, in particular the reason that the towns are peppered with towers. These are the remanats of the long battles that used to take place between the various families and people of the region, who all seemed to have a long term running vendettas . That is until the Turks turned up and suddenly they were all fighting the common enemy.
The travel part is beautifully written, Fermor has a way with words that make what he is seeing so evocative and appealing. Overall 3.5 stars, as the history parts were a little tedious occasionally.
December 27, 2012
This book is schizophrenic; it rather depends on you whether you'll find it enjoyable or not. (Which is true for a lot of books, actually.)
First, Mani is a large peninsula in southern mainland Greece and the author toured the area back in the 50's. It is rugged and barren for the most part- not the kind of place most travel writers would be hurriedly packing their bags to go and see.
Patrick had a certain flair for rhapsodic language which he employed on the rocks and cacti that helped enliven the place, but you know he's reaching when he spends a page describing the AIR.
I give him points for creativity.
On the other hand, he also had a tendency to recount history in a long, exotically-worded fashion which had the interesting property of causing my eyes to slide off the page uncomprehendingly. In a word: dull. The section on the history of Greek iconic art just about did me in.
The parts of the book I enjoyed most were his portraits of the everyday people he met along the way.
I still harbor hope that his other books might be good, but now I am leery indeed.
First, Mani is a large peninsula in southern mainland Greece and the author toured the area back in the 50's. It is rugged and barren for the most part- not the kind of place most travel writers would be hurriedly packing their bags to go and see.
Patrick had a certain flair for rhapsodic language which he employed on the rocks and cacti that helped enliven the place, but you know he's reaching when he spends a page describing the AIR.
I give him points for creativity.
On the other hand, he also had a tendency to recount history in a long, exotically-worded fashion which had the interesting property of causing my eyes to slide off the page uncomprehendingly. In a word: dull. The section on the history of Greek iconic art just about did me in.
The parts of the book I enjoyed most were his portraits of the everyday people he met along the way.
I still harbor hope that his other books might be good, but now I am leery indeed.
July 1, 2019
Με αφορμή την περιήγηση του στην απομονωμένη Μάνη του 1952, ειδικά τη μέσα Μάνη μέχρι τότε ελάχιστοι ξένοι αλλά και Έλληνες την είχαν επισκεφτεί, ο Πάτρικ Λι Φέρμορ κάνει μια κατάδυση στην κουλτούρα, την ιστορία, τους μύθους, την τέχνη της περιοχής, αλλά και της Ελλάδας, ξεκινώντας από την αρχαία ιστορία της και φτάνοντας μέχρι τις γάτες της. Ως συνήθως στα βιβλία του Πάτρικ Λι Φέρμορ η περιγραφή των τοπίων και των ανθρώπων είναι εξαιρετική. Αν πρέπει να εντοπίσω κάποιο αρνητικό, αυτό θα ήταν μια μικρή έλλε��ψη συνοχής καθώς ο συγγραφέας πετάει από τη μια ιστορία ή ένα συνειρμό στον επόμενο, κάτι που έχει ως συνεπακόλουθο σε σημεία να ξεχνάς την αφετηρία τους που είναι το ταξιδιωτικό κομμάτι του βιβλίου.
August 25, 2019
"Una magica pace vive nelle rovine dei templi greci. Il viaggiatore si adagia tra i capitelli caduti e lascia passare le ore, e l'incantesimo gli vuota la mente di ansie e pensieri molesti e a poco a poco la riempie, come un vaso che sia stato lavato e raschiato, di un'estasi tranquilla. Quasi tutto ciò che è accaduto svanisce in un limbo d'ombre e di futilità ed è sostituito pianamente da un senso di semplicità luminosa e di calma che scioglie tutti i nodi e risolve tutti gli enigmi e sembra mormorare, benigno e suadente, che la vita, a lasciarla svolgere senza impacci e costruzione e ricerche di soluzioni aliene, potrebbe essere illimitatamente felice." (p. 154)
April 22, 2010
If there is a Pantheon of travel writers, I should think that Patrick Leigh Fermor should rank near the top, alongside H. V. Morton, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Robert Byron (The Road to Oxiana), Graham Greene (The Lawless Roads and Journey Without Maps), D. H. Lawrence, Norman Douglas, and Lawrence Durrell.
Fermor is famous for paragraphs, sentences, and long rolling lists that the reader never wants to come to the end of. Try this one on for size:
There is in Fermor a joy in the fusty details of history, geography, and myth. One suddenly encounters a footnote that stands isolated like a sapphire found in the woodpile, such as the basis for claim by the Duc de Nevers to the Byzantine throne in the early seventeenth century:
That man can talk on for another six hundred pages. Spider webs would connect me to the chair I was sitting in, but the brightness of my eyes would be undiminished. I felt the same way when reading his The Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water, and Three Letters from the Andes.
One final quote, just to demonstrate why the five stars I gave this book are not enough: "I lay smoking in a sybaritic trance watching the clouds of cigarette smoke slowly cauliflowering across the room to turn, when they struck the the dazzling stratum of air, into a paper-thin cross section of madly whirling grey and blue marble." Sigh!
When you consider the part of Greece that he described, a desolate peninsula stretching south from the Peloponnese and separating the Ionian from the Adriatic Seas, it is amazing that Fermor could hold the reader's interest with such surpassing ease.
Parenthetical chapters on such topics as myths and Greek icons could stand alone as essays. I can probably go on forever, but what would be the point? This is a very wonderful book, and it casts a magical spell on the reader.
Fermor is famous for paragraphs, sentences, and long rolling lists that the reader never wants to come to the end of. Try this one on for size:
There, by the Golden Gate, in the heart of a mighty concourse, waited the lords of Byzantium: the lesser Caesars and Despots and Sebastocrators, the Grand Logothete in his globular headgear, the Counts of the palace, the Sword Bearer, the Chartophylas, the Great Duke, the thalassocrats and polemarchs, the Strateges of the Cretan archers, of the hoplites and the peltasts and the cataphracts; the Silentiaries, the Count of the Excubitors, the governors of the Asian Themes, the Clissourarchs, the Grand Eunuch, and (for by now all Byzantine history had melted into a single anachronistic maelstrom) the Prefects of Sicily and Nubia and Ethiopia and Egypt and Armenia, the Exarchs of Ravenna and Carthage, the Nomarch of Tarentum, the Catapan of Bari, the Abbot of Studium.
There is in Fermor a joy in the fusty details of history, geography, and myth. One suddenly encounters a footnote that stands isolated like a sapphire found in the woodpile, such as the basis for claim by the Duc de Nevers to the Byzantine throne in the early seventeenth century:
His claim to the Byzantine throne was through his descent from Andronicus II Palaeologue, who married Yolanda, sister and sole heir of John the Just, Marquis of Montferrat. The marquisate passed to her second son, the Despot Theodore Porphyrogennetos, and continued in the male line of Montferrat-Palaeologue for six generations and then devolved on an only daughter of Boniface de Montferrat who married Frederigo Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, a scion of the great Mantuan house, who begat Duke Charles II, the claimant in question. He planned, with the help of the other powers, to raise the entire Balkan peninsula in revolt. The help never came and the ambitious scheme faded away.
That man can talk on for another six hundred pages. Spider webs would connect me to the chair I was sitting in, but the brightness of my eyes would be undiminished. I felt the same way when reading his The Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water, and Three Letters from the Andes.
One final quote, just to demonstrate why the five stars I gave this book are not enough: "I lay smoking in a sybaritic trance watching the clouds of cigarette smoke slowly cauliflowering across the room to turn, when they struck the the dazzling stratum of air, into a paper-thin cross section of madly whirling grey and blue marble." Sigh!
When you consider the part of Greece that he described, a desolate peninsula stretching south from the Peloponnese and separating the Ionian from the Adriatic Seas, it is amazing that Fermor could hold the reader's interest with such surpassing ease.
Parenthetical chapters on such topics as myths and Greek icons could stand alone as essays. I can probably go on forever, but what would be the point? This is a very wonderful book, and it casts a magical spell on the reader.
January 8, 2016
I started this ages ago on a bus skirting the Mani (the spectacular Kalamata to Sparta road, passing the genuinely sinister spot where the Spartans abandoned their inadequate infants) and read it in Mystras and Monemvasia, and put it aside, and read more months later on a late afternoon flight across the dusky blue hills of the Peloponnese. And then it finished rather suddenly when I thought I had a lot more to go, because there is a comprehensive index at the end.
The approach to places is like Rebecca West's in the sublime Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, my dated and unreliable bible (tautology alert) in the Balkans: highly selective and subjective, lyrical on whatever details of a place take her fancy and otherwise defiantly uncomprehensive. Fermor is similarly, confidently uneven and undoubtedly the most erudite person on the planet, and frankly large chunks of this were hard to follow. It is certainly intellectually, stylistically and socially exclusive, full, FULL, of obscure Balkan history (and Corsica and Crete and god knows what else) and I feel (rather than know) that there is material here about the Mani that is not anywhere else in any language. I don't feel I have properly consumed it, but there may be other summers in Greece to dip into it, if I'm lucky.
The approach to places is like Rebecca West's in the sublime Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, my dated and unreliable bible (tautology alert) in the Balkans: highly selective and subjective, lyrical on whatever details of a place take her fancy and otherwise defiantly uncomprehensive. Fermor is similarly, confidently uneven and undoubtedly the most erudite person on the planet, and frankly large chunks of this were hard to follow. It is certainly intellectually, stylistically and socially exclusive, full, FULL, of obscure Balkan history (and Corsica and Crete and god knows what else) and I feel (rather than know) that there is material here about the Mani that is not anywhere else in any language. I don't feel I have properly consumed it, but there may be other summers in Greece to dip into it, if I'm lucky.
January 3, 2020
The Mani is the middle finger of the three-pronged southern Peloponnese, a place which was almost inaccessible, except by sea, until quite recently. It was an isolated, rugged part of Greece and when Patrick Leigh Fermor first visited this area in 1951, it was by a gruelling mountain hike across the Taygetus range, whose slopes seem always to be either burned dry by summer sun, or weighted with winter snow.
The Mani feels like another world. Leigh Fermor describes poignantly this reclusive patch of land where fortified medieval towers and a craggy coastline mix with Christian Orthodox churches and the smell of Mediterranean olives. The Maniots, the peninsula’s native inhabitants, are said to be descended from Spartans, the legendary warriors of ancient Greece.
Patrick Leigh Fermor fell in love with the Mani's dramatic beauty and history. So, eventually, he built a beautiful house by the sea in Kalamitsi and stayed there forever. It was here that he wrote his well known books about his travels in 1930's Europe.
MANI: TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN PELOPONNESE (1958) is an account of his 1951 trip, impressive as always for his erudition and his serpentine prose. It is also a heart felt celebration for this place which became his beloved home until his death in 2011.
The Mani feels like another world. Leigh Fermor describes poignantly this reclusive patch of land where fortified medieval towers and a craggy coastline mix with Christian Orthodox churches and the smell of Mediterranean olives. The Maniots, the peninsula’s native inhabitants, are said to be descended from Spartans, the legendary warriors of ancient Greece.
Patrick Leigh Fermor fell in love with the Mani's dramatic beauty and history. So, eventually, he built a beautiful house by the sea in Kalamitsi and stayed there forever. It was here that he wrote his well known books about his travels in 1930's Europe.
MANI: TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN PELOPONNESE (1958) is an account of his 1951 trip, impressive as always for his erudition and his serpentine prose. It is also a heart felt celebration for this place which became his beloved home until his death in 2011.
June 8, 2015
The chapter on ikons is some of the most wonderful writings I have ever read and stirred a memory. Many years ago I went to a church in the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus called St Nicholas of the Roof. There was a curator who was keen to explain, in very broken English, the significance of the painting and the ikons that were like nothing I had ever seen prior. Though not part of the Mani this superb book reminded me of that great big adventure on my first and only island of any Greek significance. The fact Patrick Leigh Fermor could refresh my distant memory of that visit to Cyprus has me hankering to visit mainland Greece and the Mani and all other places in that ancient land. Will there be old Greek curators with only broken English when I go? I hope so.
Read
November 7, 2018After reading Fermor's writing on the backwoods of Central Europe, my next logical step was his writing on the backwoods of Greece, and they are just as glorious, although with less about classical history and more about the everyday of life and the strange connections to the wider world in this odd point on the periphery of the "West." This would be just as good an introduction to Fermor's very distinctive, international gentleman-adventurer prose as A Time of Gifts. Strongly recommended for anyone who dreams of a wineskin and a skewer of lamb cooked over open flame with oregano, and loves the odd connections between disparate places and times... which is to say my people.
February 1, 2009
It's wonderful writing as always and he clearly loves this forgotten little corner of Greece. But it doesn't have the drive of his walk through Europe, in a few ways. Most obviously it lacks the sense of direction, literally, that Fermor conveyed with his journey from Holland to Istanbul. That kept the book moving, it kept Fermor moving, and it gave the whole enterprise a sense of urgency. The best parts and the worst parts of the book are his long (and I mean very long) digressions on some unearthed story of Byzantine history, which I at least knew nothing about. When he meets a drunk fisherman who may be the last descendant of the Emperors, and imagines returning to Constantinople in triumph, it's pretty thrilling. At other points the flurry of Greek and Turkish names is just too much to follow or care about. This is related to the issue that Fermor seems to be if anything too comfortable with the locality. Part of what made the Europe books so fun, somewhat oddly, was that he couldn't speak German or Hungarian, so he had to bond with his hosts and newfound friends through alcohol and smiles and adventure. But by this point he speaks Greek fluently and knows a ton of Greece's history, so he's telling us about the place--in the other books it was his hosts and companions who told him, and us, about where he had been and where he was going. Travel books are best, I think, when it's a journey for the traveler as well as the reader.
August 6, 2014
i think fermor wrote this, researched this in the 1950's, yes, during the lead up to cyprus debacle. but so he and his wife head out to the mountains of the southern tip of greece, the mani. south of sparta. the folks then were still very isolated and had kept much of their rustic hillbilly ways. known as mean, where the vendetta reigned, though not quite true in 1950's, does sort of describe the area historically, with their crazy tower houses dominating the built landscape, each family/clan building their tower higher in order to bombard and shoot at their neighbors.
but that is only a small part of the maniot history. they ended up in the hills mostly because of the turkish invasion and were the last holdouts. some even eventually ended up in corsica (still there too).
fermor gained great respect for this interesting travel and sociology and religious history book. and it kinda saved his bacon as far as making a living as a writer, he followed up with "rumeli", a similar sojourn in northern greece.
he had yet to write his "1st" book of trilogy of his walk from england to turkey (though actually, he had already written the last book of the trilogy, but that's another story, one can find in a great bio about fermor here Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure
this has a very nice intro by michael gorra, a handy map (but you'll need your atlas, really) and good index. no pics.
for those interested in top notch travel writing, greek history, natural history, church history, and a must-read for fermor ites.
but that is only a small part of the maniot history. they ended up in the hills mostly because of the turkish invasion and were the last holdouts. some even eventually ended up in corsica (still there too).
fermor gained great respect for this interesting travel and sociology and religious history book. and it kinda saved his bacon as far as making a living as a writer, he followed up with "rumeli", a similar sojourn in northern greece.
he had yet to write his "1st" book of trilogy of his walk from england to turkey (though actually, he had already written the last book of the trilogy, but that's another story, one can find in a great bio about fermor here Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure
this has a very nice intro by michael gorra, a handy map (but you'll need your atlas, really) and good index. no pics.
for those interested in top notch travel writing, greek history, natural history, church history, and a must-read for fermor ites.
April 17, 2009
Not as enchanting as A Time of Gifts or Between the Woods and the Water, Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese is still wonderful escapist stuff. I found myself scanning over general mythological references, a history of mythical beasts, a comparison of Eastern mysticism to Western literalism and respective religious art, an analysis of Mani blood feuds, and other digressions, while clinging to and rereading the jewels of narrative scattered throughout the book.
PLF's description of a cove "a half an hour on foot south of Kotronas" made it all worth it:
"...We had swum there half an hour ago and clambered up its steep wall, treading the hot and sweet-smelling herbs on its overgrown summit; then dived in again to swim into a sea-cave whose filtered light turned us a deep green. The water, sliding in and out of it, plopped with a hollow and lulling resonance a few yards away...I was lying half in and half out of the sea, my ears full of water noises and the rise and fall of a million cicadas, letting the sun's horses and chariot wheels ride over me roughshod;"
And from the opening paragraph of the final chapter:
"The Timing, manner and mood of a private assault on a new town are a serious matter...[Constantinople:] must be attacked from the sea and the haggish but indestructible splendour, crackling with all the atmospherics of its long history, allowed to loom slowly across the shining Propontis. Care should be taken with such cities, for the vital rendezvous of anticipation and truth can never be repeated."
PLF's description of a cove "a half an hour on foot south of Kotronas" made it all worth it:
"...We had swum there half an hour ago and clambered up its steep wall, treading the hot and sweet-smelling herbs on its overgrown summit; then dived in again to swim into a sea-cave whose filtered light turned us a deep green. The water, sliding in and out of it, plopped with a hollow and lulling resonance a few yards away...I was lying half in and half out of the sea, my ears full of water noises and the rise and fall of a million cicadas, letting the sun's horses and chariot wheels ride over me roughshod;"
And from the opening paragraph of the final chapter:
"The Timing, manner and mood of a private assault on a new town are a serious matter...[Constantinople:] must be attacked from the sea and the haggish but indestructible splendour, crackling with all the atmospherics of its long history, allowed to loom slowly across the shining Propontis. Care should be taken with such cities, for the vital rendezvous of anticipation and truth can never be repeated."
September 20, 2021
Παίρνεις την Μάνη του Λη Φέρμορ πιστεύοντας ότι θα διαβάσεις ένα ταξιδιωτικό κείμενο. Και η μια έκπληξη διαδέχεται την άλλη. Που ένας ξένος περιηγητής ξέρει τόσο καλά την πατρίδα που όφειλες εσύ να ξέρεις. Και που την αγαπά βαθιά όχι με την έννοια του φυσιολάτρη ή του αρχαιολάγνου αλλά γνωρίζοντας καλά τις αγκυλώσεις και τις αδυναμίες της. Από τα πρώτα κεφάλαια κάνει μια χωρίς ανάσα αναφορά στο ανθρώπινο και γλωσσικό ανάγλυφο της Ελλάδας. Με αφορμή την περιήγηση του στη Μάνη κάνει πετάγματα και βουτιές σ όλη την χώρα, στα νησιά, στο Πήλιο, στην Κρήτη ακόμα και στην Κύπρο. Γνωστής του Ομήρου, της μυθολογίας, της Ιστορίας κι όχι μόνο της αρχαίας όπως οι περισσότεροι ξένοι αλλά και της βυζαντινής, της τουρκοκρατίας, της επανάστασης. Γνώστης των παραδόσεων και λάτρης των μανιάτικων μοιρολογιών και της βυζαντινής αγιογραφίας τα οποία αναλύει εκτενώς στο βιβλίο αυτό. Με λυρισμό ξετυλίγει την αγάπη του γι αυτόν τον τόπο μ έναν τρόπο που δεν μπορεί να σε αφήσει ασυγκίνητο.
«Το πιο εντυπωσιακό και αποκαλυπτικό πράγμα στα ελληνικά πρόσωπα – ιδιαίτερα τα χωριάτικα- είναι τα μάτια. Όλη η ελληνική ιστορία μοιάζει μαζεμένη πίσω τους. Είναι ένα μείγμα εμπειρίας, θλιμμένης σοφίας και αθωότητας. Είναι ταυτόχρονα μελαγχολικά και οξυδερκή, και έτοιμα να πεταχτούν θυμωμένη από τις κόγχες τους, η μια εύθυμη ή συνωμοτική φλόγα να ανάψει μέσα τους· Πάνω απ’ όλα, είναι γεμάτα από μια πλατιά, πρωτοφανή, ανεπιφύλακτη ειλικρίνεια. . Φωτίζουν πολλά από τα ασχημότερα πρόσωπα και κάνουν τα όμορφά να δείχνουν ανείπωτα συγκινητικά».
«Το πιο εντυπωσιακό και αποκαλυπτικό πράγμα στα ελληνικά πρόσωπα – ιδιαίτερα τα χωριάτικα- είναι τα μάτια. Όλη η ελληνική ιστορία μοιάζει μαζεμένη πίσω τους. Είναι ένα μείγμα εμπειρίας, θλιμμένης σοφίας και αθωότητας. Είναι ταυτόχρονα μελαγχολικά και οξυδερκή, και έτοιμα να πεταχτούν θυμωμένη από τις κόγχες τους, η μια εύθυμη ή συνωμοτική φλόγα να ανάψει μέσα τους· Πάνω απ’ όλα, είναι γεμάτα από μια πλατιά, πρωτοφανή, ανεπιφύλακτη ειλικρίνεια. . Φωτίζουν πολλά από τα ασχημότερα πρόσωπα και κάνουν τα όμορφά να δείχνουν ανείπωτα συγκινητικά».
January 11, 2016
I have endlessly trumpeted my admiration for Patrick Leigh-Fermor. That reaction is based on two books: A Time of Gifts and Between The Woods and the Water. I have the third book in this trilogy, To the Iron Gates, queued, as well as Artemis Cooper’s biography. (I even recently bought a copy of In Tearing Haste, a collection of letters between Paddy and the Duchess of Devonshire – aka “Debbo” – fandom indeed) Mani was more of a struggle for me. There is no doubt that it contains quintessential Paddy gems. His late night ruminations on how one might, even today, reclaim Constantinople from the Turks are very funny. It also presents a number of scholarly reflections on the population of the southern Peloponnese and their possible origins in Constantinople. There’s a long part on the nature of Ikons in Byzantine art and their changes over time. All of this is surrounded by his impressions of the people and the land. It’s a wonderful book but it left me a little too scattered to give it that five-star rating.
January 7, 2016
Patrick Leigh Fermor had meant this book to be but "one chapter among many, each of them describing the stages and halts, the encounters, the background and the conclusions of a leisurely journey - a kind of recapitulation of many former journeys - through continental Greece and the islands." He wound up straying somewhat from his original brief: this "chapter", on a remote backwater of Greece, spilled out into a 350 page book. Leigh Fermor, accompanied by his wife Joan, spent three summer weeks circumambulating the Mani, the middle peninsula hanging off the very bottom of the Peloponnesian peninsula. The journey was arduous, even when accomplished by caique, but extremely rewarding. The account of their travels is fascinating, and very digressive, so much so that Leigh Fermor apologizes for his many omissions: "The most noticeable of these is the belief in vampires, their various nature and their origins, to which many pages should have been devoted". That chapter alone probably would have swollen the page count to over 400, and I for one regret its absence.
October 29, 2020
I read this because I was looking for highly regarded travel writing. Which this is. But man...talk about slow going. Fermor writes like he's trying to prove he's the smartest boy who never went to Oxford. His sentences are absurd, his metaphors dubious, his language as recondite as possible. I actually started fantasizing writing a science fiction "travel" memoir while reading this, one where I describe the history and battles and peoples and places of an imaginary planet, because that's exactly how this book reads. To appreciate it, one needs to have a deep, deep, deep knowledge of Greek history, because though Fermor will go on for pages and pages and pages about that history, it's all presented with the assumption that you know every ancient reference. I'm not entirely ignorant, but it was all--ahem-- science fiction to me, aside maybe from the occasional obvious shout-out to Homer, ancient Rome, or the entire chapter devoted to cats (don't ask). Three stars for his being such a smarty-pants.
August 15, 2016
Patrick Leigh Fermor is one of the great travel writers and in my opinion this is his best book, though A Time of Gifts is still an important book for me, having inspired me to travel when I was younger (I'm still going today!). Fermor's knowledge of the Greek world, his fluency in Greek, and this document of his travels in a part of Greece which, at the time, was unknown, is a classic. His prose might read as a bit ornate today, but that's why you really need to give yourself a peaceful stretch of time to absorb it and luxuriate in its elegant prose. I spent last spring in the Peloponnese and thought of Fermor a lot. His book contributed to my sense of wonder. Alas, the remoteness of the Mani no longer exists, but it's still relatively free of tourists in the early spring (I was there early May). A lovely book, beautifully written.
September 1, 2024
Brilliant
Fermor is from a different age, his writing style is compelling and his books are addictive, and leave you yearning for more.
Added after my second reading: A treasure trove of anecdotes, asides, musings, a dream like quality to his writings which genuinely transports you.
Fermor is from a different age, his writing style is compelling and his books are addictive, and leave you yearning for more.
Added after my second reading: A treasure trove of anecdotes, asides, musings, a dream like quality to his writings which genuinely transports you.
October 15, 2023
More a history book than a travel book, but still an interesting journey into the life of the Mani, the central peninsula in Greek Peloponnese. From ancient Greeks to Byzantine despotates, next to Turkish invasion, modern independence, language, food... Really great to read!
December 5, 2020
Wasn't sure about this one at first as I'd found the author's work hit-or-miss so far; however, I'm glad I read this one.
For those unfamiliar with the Mani Peninsula, it's a remote region on the far edge of the Greek mainland, which was influenced least by the outside world until (arguably) the 20th century. As I understand it, the Turks had only nominal influence over the area, with local officials running the show. As with the Alaska Panhandle, the communities are largely connected by sea rather than road.
The book consists of the travel narrative aspect, which is what I really wanted, of the author and his wife going from town to town, describing their observations and comparisons along the way. There are also digressions by chapter into other more general topics such as nature, art, etc. with the Mani as a jumping off point for a more general Greek discussion; though well-written, these should resonate according to the reader's interest in that area. What did not work for me nearly as well had to do with the author's frequent digression into the weeds regarding Greek history of the Middle Ages - a fair amount of skimming by Yours Truly there.
Despite some frustration on that score at times, the book gets a high rating for reminding me that PLF was an absolutely talented writer!
For those unfamiliar with the Mani Peninsula, it's a remote region on the far edge of the Greek mainland, which was influenced least by the outside world until (arguably) the 20th century. As I understand it, the Turks had only nominal influence over the area, with local officials running the show. As with the Alaska Panhandle, the communities are largely connected by sea rather than road.
The book consists of the travel narrative aspect, which is what I really wanted, of the author and his wife going from town to town, describing their observations and comparisons along the way. There are also digressions by chapter into other more general topics such as nature, art, etc. with the Mani as a jumping off point for a more general Greek discussion; though well-written, these should resonate according to the reader's interest in that area. What did not work for me nearly as well had to do with the author's frequent digression into the weeds regarding Greek history of the Middle Ages - a fair amount of skimming by Yours Truly there.
Despite some frustration on that score at times, the book gets a high rating for reminding me that PLF was an absolutely talented writer!
April 16, 2023
This is an account of Patrick Leigh Fermor's trek with his partner Joan into the Mani, the central peninsula of the three that project into the Mediterranean from the southern Peloponnese. Set in the 1950s they explore a wild and primitive landscape and people, then little changed by the modern world. To this extent the book is fascinating and informative. But, as a travelogue the book is a failure. The author cannot resist using it as a platform to show off his encyclopaedic knowledge of Greek history, customs and art. This is particularly so in the second half of the book when, having reached Cape Matapan (the ancient Taenarus where a cave gave entrance to the underworld) the southernmost tip of mainland Europe, the pair take a series of boat trips back up the eastern side of the peninsula. The author uses this as an excuse to indulge in a succession of obscure digressions that abandon all pretence of travel-writing.
I had been partly tempted to read the book "that confirmed [Patrick Leigh Fermor's] reputation as one of the English language's finest exponents". Yet, whilst his vast vocabulary and limitless erudition are not in doubt, he has a tendency to indulge in exhaustive and tedious lists. For instance, in the first chapter he lists two pages worth of "strange communities" in one sentence, each name and location separated from the next by a comma. Whilst this may display the immense scope of his knowledge, it comes across as name-dropping. It is not good English.
I had been partly tempted to read the book "that confirmed [Patrick Leigh Fermor's] reputation as one of the English language's finest exponents". Yet, whilst his vast vocabulary and limitless erudition are not in doubt, he has a tendency to indulge in exhaustive and tedious lists. For instance, in the first chapter he lists two pages worth of "strange communities" in one sentence, each name and location separated from the next by a comma. Whilst this may display the immense scope of his knowledge, it comes across as name-dropping. It is not good English.
December 22, 2019
Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese is Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of a trip he and his wife Joan made to the Mani peninsula in the mid-1950s. The Mani is the rocky, isolated southern tip of Greece, where a handful of villages are squeezed between the sea and the heights of the Taygetus mountains which form the backbone of the peninsula. No doubt it's very different these days, but in the 1950s there were hardly any roads, and Leigh Fermor found a peasant society in many ways untouched by the twentieth century. Originally intended to form a chapter in a more general book on Greece, his account of the trip (with many of his typical digressions into the history and culture of the region, or even into pure flights of fancy such as his imaginative response to meeting a fisherman who may have been a direct descendent of the last Byzantine Emperor) exanded into a whole book.
I picked the book up because as the days approached their shortest at the end of a particularly wet and gloomy autumn I was longing to escape to Mediterranean warmth and sunshine, even if only via a book (I don't actually ever expect to be able to get as far as Greece physically, especially given the impending loss of my freedom of movement). Leigh Fermor has an incredible ability to paint a picture in words and I really felt that I could see the sunbaked rocky hills, the blue bays and the villages full of half-ruined towers. While I love his erudition and the way his travel writing encompasses more than just the here and now of the places he visits, I did feel that some of the digressions in Mani (particularly the one on ikon-painting) perhaps went on a little too long, and I missed the forward momentum of his account of his walk across Europe, but it's a fascinating and beautifully-written book and I very much enjoyed it.
I picked the book up because as the days approached their shortest at the end of a particularly wet and gloomy autumn I was longing to escape to Mediterranean warmth and sunshine, even if only via a book (I don't actually ever expect to be able to get as far as Greece physically, especially given the impending loss of my freedom of movement). Leigh Fermor has an incredible ability to paint a picture in words and I really felt that I could see the sunbaked rocky hills, the blue bays and the villages full of half-ruined towers. While I love his erudition and the way his travel writing encompasses more than just the here and now of the places he visits, I did feel that some of the digressions in Mani (particularly the one on ikon-painting) perhaps went on a little too long, and I missed the forward momentum of his account of his walk across Europe, but it's a fascinating and beautifully-written book and I very much enjoyed it.
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