From richratzan@yahoo.com Sun Aug 19 04:06:01 2001 Received: from mxu104.u.washington.edu (mxu104.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f7JB60078092 for ; Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:06:00 -0700 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by mxu104.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with SMTP id f7JB60q11246 for ; Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:06:00 -0700 Received: FROM web10907.mail.yahoo.com BY mxu4.u.washington.edu ; Sun Aug 19 04:05:59 2001 -0700 Message-ID: <20010819110555.48393.qmail@web10907.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [208.246.35.242] by web10907.mail.yahoo.com; Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:05:55 PDT Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:05:55 -0700 (PDT) From: rich ratzan Subject: Re: "Corelli," ELAS, etc. To: classics@u.washington.edu Cc: rich ratzanyahoo In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii to all i've seen film Mediterraneo (very good but it is a distant memory) and read book (i thought it was 11 years ago when on sabbatical in tucson taking a course with norm austin on homer, quite appropriately since there is quite a bit of nostos going on in corelli, but am probably wrong if cited date of 1994 is correct) but have not seen recent film corelli. book is spectacular and although it has a certain number of happy endings bordering on magic realism, it does not deal with soppy fantasy. there are quite a few unpleasant and real scenes dealing with fascism, meanness, fanaticism and stark cruelty. there is also admirable heroism, believable personality conversions and development, and quite memorable characters. his style is wonderfully rich but not purple. the first chapter alone is a tour de force. he reminds one of GG Marquez, who i would guess is an important au for de bernieres it IS hard not to believe that the later of the two artistes (probably de bernieres if david lupher is correct and i assume he is) did not take some guidance or artistic borrowing from the earlier. i remember thinking such - it is quite obvious - at the time (btw, having read WARS by canadian author finley i wondered the same about English Patient!) it is particularly suggestive (sorry for double entendre) concerning the homo-eroticism between the two soldiers. sorry to ramble. i do not know about the recent movie but the book corelli is well worth the read. (have bought but not read his earlier books) ciao e and --- David Lupher wrote: > 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 Bernières 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 think? > But no story set in wartime Cephallonia (Kefallinia) > can rest content with > cute naked shepherdesses, whores with hearts of > gold, soccer games on the > beach, etc. What happened to the Italian Acqui > division in 1943 is surely > one of the grimmer stories of WWII in Greece. > > David Lupher > Classics Dept. > Univ. of Puget Sound > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ .