Krishna
I found this a very different book from the normal stories and therefore interesting.
A young girl is going with an old man to a leper colony from Plaka to Spinalonga, where the colony is, in a one page preface.
Years later, Alexis travels alone in a boat to the island. She is wild but her Greek God looking boyfriend Ed is too disciplined and their romance is withering. She gets permission from mother Sofia to visit her old island of Plaka and some people who knew her mother as a young girl.
The mother asks the friend in a letter to tell everything about the past. She learns that her great grandmother was a leper. Then the story goes back into how nice a teacher she was when she was banished to the island never to return because she got leprosy and how she got it because a boy in her class had it and his parents hid it from everyone until too late.
The story is sentimental and maudlin on how Eleni felt when she was shipped to the island and how she is ‘oh so generous’ treating the boy who was the cause of her troubles with total affection and stuff like that. Nothing much happens because the narration does not take you into the minds of anyone at all and sounds like a robotic description of a story.
Lots of details about the feelings and thoughts and the situation but somehow it falls flat. Eleni, with her blunt methods, wins the enmity of the school teacher who was lazy whom she replaced.
Meanwhile Anna, her elder daughter, rebels completely and the husband Georgis, who also happens to be a boatman who brings supplies to the island, has a ton of issues with her.
There is a leader of the community in the island whose wife, Elpida becomes good friends with Eleni. When a load of learned but wretched people arrive at the island, things take a turn for the better (in the story I mean, not the story itself, which stays blah.)
The characters are made of cardboard: clearly defined good men and evil men. When the leader Kontomoris wants to hand over the reins of the island to Papadimitriou, an able newcomer, we are suddenly introduced to an angry evil contender who we can see is clearly ‘bad’.
Then when the author settles down to tell the story, it really improves. She talks of Anna’s waywardness and she has an eye for the playboy Manoli who is a cousin of her husband. He is interested in her sister Maria. She likes him too and imagines herself in love with him. However Anna is burning with jealousy because she wants him to herself, cheating on her husband. Conveniently, when Maria gets lesions that get confirmed that she has leprosy, the problems solve themselves. Maria goes away to the island Spanalonga and the man comes back to Anna. It is common knowledge among farmhands but the husband and his parents seem to be clueless.
Dr Krystatsis, who is doing research in leprosy cure meets and falls in love with Maria in the island and when Georgis discovers that he can go to Maria’s house, his joy knows no bounds. In the meanwhile, the town, in misguided panic and anger wants to set fire to the entire island. The good doctor singlehandedly defuses the tensions and sends them back, becoming a hero on the island. Anna is meanwhile pregnant.
When Alexandros finally finds the reality he kills Anna and goes to prison. Little Sofia, his daughter, lives with the grandparents.
When the grandmother dies, Maria and Dr Kystatsis adopt her. Finally the grandfathers (including Giorgis) die. Sofia grows up to be a wilful child.
A big melodrama at the end, which in my opinion was not warranted. It goes on and on, and on.
Overall, a 6/10
– – Krishna (Oct 2018)