Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Day 3 and I am starting to tire--just kidding-- I'm still good but my eyes are a little dry after book 3--could be the fact I also read four (long) chapters on financial accounting in addition to my novel reading. Tony King told me his daughter has a similar blog but is focused on Mann Booker winners--that is a better idea than mine. Damn! He also told me he was a healthy skeptic of my pace--I like the doubt.
Yesterday was the start of my MBA studies--apparently accounting is a big deal in business. Whoda thunk it? I also realized I don't know how to use a financial calculator, I have a poor grasp of Excel 2010, and I'm slightly annoyed by my wife watching the new season of The Bachelor while I twist in the wind.
I hope I can juggle everything this year but I fear the truth...
To summarize my mission: 501 books in 501 days culled arbitrarily from the tome 501 Must Read Books. Your mission: read my blog and make snide comments and occasionally read one of the offerings.
Today's novel (Modern Fiction): Louis De Bernieres' Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Preface: My wife has been demanding that I read this book for a couple of years. She forbade me from seeing the movie (at least until I read the book) after she was devastated by the awful film adaptation. I guess she isn't alone in her dismay since De Bernieres himself said, "It would be impossible for a parent to be happy about its baby's ears being put on backwards." (As an aside Nicolas Cage went from being one of our favorite actors to the B-list--Wicker Man, National Treasure, Ghost Rider, Face/Off, etc--awful. Perhaps the $20 million he owes to the IRS looms larger than my disapproval--but I digress). After reading the novel I realized quickly that I had scored no points with my wife. She cited the blog as being my motivation and felt some injury to her pride that her advice alone was not enough to get me reading--no reward (other than intrinsic) for reading the book. Another aside: Apparently our relationship is replete of make-up sex, angry-sex, and reward-for-reading-spouse's-book choice-sex--I am frustrated but I am determined to have sex simply on principle. But I digress...
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a love story set against the Italian occupation of an idyllic Greek Island (Cephallonia) during World War II. An I
talian officer (can you guess his rank and title from the name of the book?) and a headstrong Greek physician's daughter (are there other types of Greek women?) Pelagia inevitably fall in love. The Italian occupiers are not popular but their lax approach to the war and lack of interest in fighting make them bearable for their angry Greek hosts. After some time the Greeks learn that they like the Italians even though they hate them in principle (much like the Calgary Flames fan base). Everything seems to be going well between the sensitive musician conscript and his lass when (cue evil music) the Nazis arrive. The Nazi's take war pretty seriously and aren't too impressed by the Italians who seem to be on perpetual Spring break. When orders come from above to massacre the Italian troops things go from Spring break fun to catastrophe.Grade: B+
Overall the book is solid story and a great yarn. The first third of the story uses many characters' perspectives with pleasing effect and when the main characters soon take over the narrative you miss the technique as much as the visits with minor characters. Also, the end of the book is a little drawn out and not terribly satisfying since it tends to the cliche but the story (true in historical elements) is so interesting and the characters so well written it is easily forgivable. Captain Corelli's Mandolin is at its best when exploring the varieties of love--there is straight love, gay love, lust, romance, chaste love, familial love, fraternal love, love of country, love of God, everything but Nazi love (damn Nazis!).
Segues: I haven't seen the film yet (see above) but I have read Bernieres' The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman and his A Partisan's Daughter, the former sublime and the latter a bit of a failure. My wife has read his Birds Without Wings and gave it a thumbs-up.
Update: I watched the film Captain Corelli's Mandolin and had repeated vomiting spells and seizures. By the end of the flick I was cheering on the Nazis and simply hoping Penelope Cruz would get naked--no such luck. It is seldom I actually cheer for the Nazis just to so the film will finish faster. I jest--I hate Nazis. Awful, awful, awful film.
Tommorow's book (Science Fiction): Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (4/501)
