fheimburger's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
ryan93's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
fourtriplezed's review against another edition
5.0
I was expecting the last book in our hero's great walk to be not as exciting as his previous tomes. In fact this was as riveting as any previous and I put that down to a need by me as the reader, to not only know what was happening next but again be dragged into the beautiful and romantic text. When we get cut of at mid sentence short of the intended target and then get only few diary excerpts of the intended destination I was taken aback. But, in what can be but a credit to the publishers, the day was saved by PLF's diary of his time at Mount Athos. Fascinating reading. What a wonderful trilogy by a truly remarkable individual.
momey's review against another edition
3.0
again i just can't with his upper classness. very sorry to say as i love treking books
bookpossum's review
4.0
Not as beautiful as the first two volumes, which Fermor had written in full and lovingly remembered detail. This book has been pulled together from some earlier work he had done on this last part of the journey to Istanbul, but then put aside, breaking off in mid sentence. The last 100 pages or so are from his diary describing his time on Mount Athos in Greece, which was interesting to read but were the notes of a very young man written at the time, rather than the polished memories of the mature man.
The early part of the book still contains wonderful passages. My favourite is this, which gives a good idea of his style:
"A shadow appeared on the awnings further up the lane, gliding across each rectangle of canvas towards my table, sinking in the sag, rising again at the edge, and moving on to the next with a flicker of dislocation, then gliding onwards. As it crossed the stripe of sunlight between two awnings, it threaded the crimson beak of a stork through the air, a few inches above the gap; then came a long white neck, the swell of snowy beast feathers and the six-foot motionless span of its white wings and the tips of the black flight feathers upturned and separated as fingers in the lift of the air current. The white belly followed, tapering, and then, trailing beyond, the fan of its tail and long parallel legs of crimson lacquer, the toes of each of them closed and streamlined, but the whole shape flattening, when the band of sunlight was crossed, into a two-dimensional shadow once more, enormously displayed across the rectangle of cloth, as distinct and nearly as immobile, so languid was its flight, as an emblematic bird on a sail; then sliding across it and along the nearly still corridor of air between the invisible eaves and the chimneys, dipping along the curl of the lane like a sigh of wonder, and at last, a furlong away slowing pivoting, at a gradual tilt, out of sight. A bird of passage like the rest of us."
(Page 62-3 of the ePub version - the passage I referred to in my progress report, though somehow the page numbering changed.)
Definitely worth reading, but as the last part of the trilogy rather than as a stand-alone book.
The early part of the book still contains wonderful passages. My favourite is this, which gives a good idea of his style:
"A shadow appeared on the awnings further up the lane, gliding across each rectangle of canvas towards my table, sinking in the sag, rising again at the edge, and moving on to the next with a flicker of dislocation, then gliding onwards. As it crossed the stripe of sunlight between two awnings, it threaded the crimson beak of a stork through the air, a few inches above the gap; then came a long white neck, the swell of snowy beast feathers and the six-foot motionless span of its white wings and the tips of the black flight feathers upturned and separated as fingers in the lift of the air current. The white belly followed, tapering, and then, trailing beyond, the fan of its tail and long parallel legs of crimson lacquer, the toes of each of them closed and streamlined, but the whole shape flattening, when the band of sunlight was crossed, into a two-dimensional shadow once more, enormously displayed across the rectangle of cloth, as distinct and nearly as immobile, so languid was its flight, as an emblematic bird on a sail; then sliding across it and along the nearly still corridor of air between the invisible eaves and the chimneys, dipping along the curl of the lane like a sigh of wonder, and at last, a furlong away slowing pivoting, at a gradual tilt, out of sight. A bird of passage like the rest of us."
(Page 62-3 of the ePub version - the passage I referred to in my progress report, though somehow the page numbering changed.)
Definitely worth reading, but as the last part of the trilogy rather than as a stand-alone book.
mamasquirrel's review against another edition
3.0
Tragic and lovely but too meandering for my short-witted child-addled brain right now. Tragic because of lines like this "Nearly all the people in this book, as it turned out, were attached to trails of powder which were already invisibly burning, to explode during the next decade and a half, in unhappy endings" (180). The Eastern Europe that Fermor saw and wrote about has been so utterly changed by war...he was writing about cultures and people distinct to that time. Tragic and amazing.
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2844587.html
Ten years ago, I read Patrick Leigh Fermor's two classic books about his teenage walking journey from the Hook of Holland to "Constantinople", and regretted that the final third was unlikely to ever appear. Well, I had missed that in fact the major part of the account has been strung together posthumously, and while it's still a bit raw in places, it's still brilliantly engaging on Bulgaria, Romania and Mount Athos in the early 1930s. Bulgaria in particular gets very good treatment, the young Patrick Leigh Fermor mixing with men and women of his own age and interests, and therefore subject to more emotional involvement than he allowed to show in the two books published in his lifetime. (Nadejda sounds particularly interesting; I wonder what happened to her in the end? And there is a brilliant account of a Romanian brothel.) The one big gap is that he left only short diary notes of his time in Istanbul; it would have been great to have got his insights into the city in transition as it then was. I am particularly recommending this to my Bulgarian friends.
Ten years ago, I read Patrick Leigh Fermor's two classic books about his teenage walking journey from the Hook of Holland to "Constantinople", and regretted that the final third was unlikely to ever appear. Well, I had missed that in fact the major part of the account has been strung together posthumously, and while it's still a bit raw in places, it's still brilliantly engaging on Bulgaria, Romania and Mount Athos in the early 1930s. Bulgaria in particular gets very good treatment, the young Patrick Leigh Fermor mixing with men and women of his own age and interests, and therefore subject to more emotional involvement than he allowed to show in the two books published in his lifetime. (Nadejda sounds particularly interesting; I wonder what happened to her in the end? And there is a brilliant account of a Romanian brothel.) The one big gap is that he left only short diary notes of his time in Istanbul; it would have been great to have got his insights into the city in transition as it then was. I am particularly recommending this to my Bulgarian friends.
ellisknox's review against another edition
4.0
This is the third of the three volumes that recount Fermor's walk from London to Istanbul. It's the weakest of the three books, which still leaves it stronger than any other twenty books I've read over the past decade.
The work is in two parts, though not presented that way. The first is the longer, which Fermor wrote well after the first two volumes. The reason for the delay of two decades remains unknown, but there's a distinct difference in tone here, and that difference is the reason for knocking off a star. It feels more like a self-conscious memoir than the enthusiastic chronicling of the first two volumes.
More memorable is the final chapter, Mount Athos, which takes up about 20% of the book. This Fermor never intended to publish in raw form, for it it taken directly from his notebooks. If you find your interest flagging in the earlier chapters, skip ahead to this. You won't be sorry. I was left with a consuming interest in both Mount Athos and the many monasteries there, and in the British forces that fought in Greece during World War II. Both have an air of melancholic adventure about them.
And he got me to download Byron to my Kindle.
The work is in two parts, though not presented that way. The first is the longer, which Fermor wrote well after the first two volumes. The reason for the delay of two decades remains unknown, but there's a distinct difference in tone here, and that difference is the reason for knocking off a star. It feels more like a self-conscious memoir than the enthusiastic chronicling of the first two volumes.
More memorable is the final chapter, Mount Athos, which takes up about 20% of the book. This Fermor never intended to publish in raw form, for it it taken directly from his notebooks. If you find your interest flagging in the earlier chapters, skip ahead to this. You won't be sorry. I was left with a consuming interest in both Mount Athos and the many monasteries there, and in the British forces that fought in Greece during World War II. Both have an air of melancholic adventure about them.
And he got me to download Byron to my Kindle.