Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernières

Quite a long book, but worth a read.

It's like wading through treacle. The language is unneccesarily flowery and plot is horribly complicated by sub plots. Unlike Shakespeare or Pratchett who are guilty of the former and letter respectively, this book's over all story isn't worth the effort.

I originally started reading it in 1999 after it was recommended to me (Kings New Clothes style) by someone who couldn't read it. I can read it, but honestly why would you want to? It's a terrible book and I have no idea why it ever had any critical acclaim.

Some good passages of description but no more evocative than a travel article in a Sunday paper. The end made me wish I hadn't struggled through the whole thing. Captain Corelli - what a twit - hanging about for years making assumptions about the woman you want to be with all that time... he and the Pierce Brosnan character from the equally infuriating Mama Mia should go out for a beer and droop about full of regret together. Boring old geezers.

A modern classic. I first read this in the mid-nineties, and some of the characters remain as vivid to this day as the time I was introduced to them. Of course, they are all larger than life, drawing on Greek and Italian stereotypes. De Bernières style is a little wordy at times, to say the least, but the story is a sweeping tale of love, war, betrayal and the capacity of human spirit to find happiness in some truly dire circumstances. The setting, the Greek island of Kefalonia, is beautifully evoked and there is a good helping of humour to counteract the darker passages of the novel. I really enjoyed it, and would thoroughly recommend it.