Just read Captain Corelli's Mandolin, part of a process of teaching myself to read bigger books (534 pages) and take longer over them (2 months). Obviously, he's a great writer and in the end I thought it was a great book. The main effect it had on me was to make me miserable by getting across a profound sense of the horror of war. The main things that struck me about his writing were how happy he was to digress and enjoy chapters and subplots and so on, regardless of how essential they were to moving the plot along. And, obviously connected, how strong a sense you get of him enjoying his writing. I enjoyed it too, although I had to struggle with the usual impatience that I was reading this book to train myself out of.

I followed the book by watching the film on video. A lot of good things about it, despite the problems of having to reduce 534 pages and all those digressions to something more streamlined. I couldn't understand why they chose to get the actors to perform it in funny accents, though, and I giggled when they had the Italian soldiers singing while shaving rather than singing on the bog.

But I felt cheated by the much-happier-than-the-book ending. For me, this meant removing what was the most powerful thing in the book. I guess it's typical of movie adaptations, but I thought it was a real shame. Maybe they should have gone for a two-part Jean de Florette kind of approach.

And one more thing, both the book and the film fail to raise questions about guilt surrounding the main characters which I would have thought inevitable given what happens in both the book and the film (I'm being inexplicit for the sake of anyone who hasn't seen or read either).

B-)