#corelli's mandolin

[para-que-no-nos-borren]

"The other night when you were dancing, the way you were moving, the turn of your head. I thought I could watch you forever."

[maneatingbadger]

Lovers who had been procrastinating got married immediately, and longstanding couples in unsatisfactory marriages looked at one another in wonder at such a waste of years and immediately got divorced.

Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin

[maneatingbadger]

Italians always act without thinking, it’s the glory and the downfall of your civilisation. A German plans a month in advance what his bowel movements will be at Easter, and the British plan everything in retrospect, so it always looks as though everything occurred as they intended. The French plan everything whilst appearing to be having a party, and the Spanish … well, God knows.

Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin

[maneatingbadger]

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. But sometimes the petals fall away and the roots have not entwined. Imagine giving up your home and your people, only to discover after six months, a year, three years, that the trees have had no roots and have fallen over. Imagine the desolation. Imagine the imprisonment.

Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin

[maneatingbadger]

By the time that he was five years old and Christos Sartzetakis was elected in place of Karamanlis, Iannis already knew how to say ‘Hello’ and ‘Isn’t he adorable?’ in six different languages. This was because he spent nearly all his time at the taverna in his grandmother’s care, being cooed over by pink and sentimental foreigners who loved olive-skinned little boys with black fringes over their ebony eyes, just as long as they did not grow older and come to their own countries looking for employment.

Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin

[maneatingbadger]

[Chapter] 37 An Episode Confirming Pelagia’s Belief that Men do not Know the Difference Between Bravery and a Lack of Common Sense

Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin

[litandlifequotes]

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. 

Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

[wellntruly]

Read Corelli’s Mandolin during August 2020, and you’re right that it’s such a summer book, especially for those late summer afternoons. No exaggeration that I think about “Since I encountered death, met death on every mountain path, conversed with death in my sleep, wrestled with death in the snow, gambled at dice with death, I have come to the conclusion that death is not an enemy but a brother…he likes the young and beautiful, he wants to stroke out hair and careless the sinew that binds our muscle to the bone…” all the time

It makes me so happy to hear this

Have you read Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernières's novel this time located around the First World War in Turkey? It is also for the warm seasons!