From dlupher@ups.edu Sun Aug 19 01:59:25 2001 Received: from mxu103.u.washington.edu (mxu103.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.14]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f7J8xM072372 for ; Sun, 19 Aug 2001 01:59:22 -0700 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by mxu103.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with SMTP id f7J8xIn05758 for ; Sun, 19 Aug 2001 01:59:22 -0700 Received: FROM mail.ups.edu BY mxu3.u.washington.edu ; Sun Aug 19 01:59:17 2001 -0700 Received: from [207.207.116.53] (wyatt1dhcp53.ups.edu [207.207.116.53]) by mail.ups.edu (8.11.5/8.11.3) with ESMTP id f7J8xAU17217 for ; Sun, 19 Aug 2001 01:59:14 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: dlupher@mail.ups.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <3B7E2C42.E40866C4@caratzas.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 01:33:11 -0700 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Lupher Subject: Re: "Corelli," ELAS, etc. Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by mail.ups.edu id f7J8xAU17217 Susann Lusnia writes: >I have not read the book, but in seeing the trailer I began to wonder if >this wasn't a poor rehash of that wonderful Italian film "Mediterraneo" = from >1991. I have to say that when reading the book I was *often* reminded of "Mediterraneo." The book appeared first in 1994, so it is not at all impossible that De Berni=E8res was influenced by it. Both "Corelli" (the book---I haven't seen the film) and "Mediterraneo" surely romanticize the Italian occupation of Greece. But "Corelli" is rather less idyllic than "Mediterraneo," in which the only casualty was a donkey (an Italian donkey, at that). In fact, "Mediterrraneo" at moments even cutsifies the occupation. It's just a little *too* jolly, don't you thin= k? But no story set in wartime Cephallonia (Kefallinia) can rest content wit= h cute naked shepherdesses, whores with hearts of gold, soccer games on the beach, etc. What happened to the Italian Acqui division in 1943 is surel= y one of the grimmer stories of WWII in Greece. David Lupher Classics Dept. Univ. of Puget Sound .