Colin Thubron, who in 1972 traversed the island making a six-hundred-mile tour on foot, moves from the ancient past to the modern days, stressing “continuity”. His Cypriot companion brings into the book the “local” voice, which, although somewhat naïve at times, allows a lively representation of the Cypriots.
The companion identifies with Cyprus as he does with his home and explains everything in his own, perhaps uninformed terms, which stem from his childhood stories and living legends. His perspective adds a refreshing aspect to the travelogue. The author is condescending towards his village companion, who is incapable of being an appreciative admirer of his own land in the British sense.
The differences in the complex and varied relationship between subjectivity and place emerge through the pages of the text. In his effort to understand the complexity of Cyprus, Thubron ends his travelogue comparing the island with its goddess Aphrodite: “The flux and bending of peoples, gods, ideas, tempers her every facet. Yet out of the confusion a quality emerges- a kind of battered Hellenism, pulled like a damaged statue from the earth of civilisations, its outlines softened by the East and dulled through distance from the motherland. But perfectly recognisable. For the spirit, which most deeply formed the island was the triumph, however partial, of Greece.”
© Costas and Rita Severis Foundation
The 'Did you Know' series is supported by The Hellenic Initiative Canada.
