Published 1994 / Length 435 pages
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin has become a modern classic, and deservedly so. Louis de Bernières’s tale is of a beautiful Greek girl, Pelagia, from the tiny island of Cephalonia, and her passionate love for Captain Antonio Corelli, a visiting soldier from the lightly occupying Italian Army, during the Second World War. The book is also an attempt to define and describe music in words, as the notes and harmonies of Antonio’s mandolin weave around Pelagia and her world. But tragedy is never far away in wartime, and soon Cephalonia’s rural harmony is shattered by the arrival of the brutal Germans, whose actions suddenly and unexpectedly fill the pages of the novel with blood. The plot twists and winds its way from the old ways of rural Greece to the new, and so we see those things that change with the mere effort of politicians – such as the coming of electricity; those that take more effort of will – such as changes in attitudes; and that which struggles to remain the same despite the passage of time: love.
‘Louis de Bernières has an incredible way of describing the personal – he is intensely intimate and his superb portrayal of characters spans generations. It is as though they are living parallel lives across time and you are actually participating in those lives. In Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, he creates two vibrant descriptions of two entirely different worlds – the national events surrounding the Second World War in which Cephalonia is merely a pawn, and the personal events of his characters. Yet the two are so interwoven that you are not conscious of them being separate at all – it is more that one is a reflection of the other.’ – GISÈLE, 32
• Some readers find that there is a central inconsistency to the plot when Antonio acts out of character, which makes the remaining narrative unconvincing. Do you agree with this? If not, is it because the story continues to sweep you away, or for some different reason?
• How well do you feel the author manages to fuse descriptions of music with the narrative?
• The novel is written from the perspective of several different characters. Did any of these voices jar with you, or are they all equally successful?
• Captain Corelli’s Mandolin won the 1995 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book.
• The book was made into a successful film in 2001 starring Nicholas Cage and Penélope Cruz.
• The Hundred Secret Senses by AMY TAM – another tale of hidden secrets and ghostly appearances.
• The House of the Spirits by ISABEL ALLENDE – several generations in a foreign land are vividly conjured.
• Birdsong by SEBASTIAN FAULKS (see here) – another modern classic that examines love against a backdrop of political conflict, this time set during the First World War.