![\"4.5](\"https:\/\/www.wilsonld.com\/weblog\/wp-includes\/images\/stars-4-5.gif\" "\\"4.5")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Louis de Berni\u00c3\u00a8res, 2004, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House Inc., New York<\/p>\n
This book was recommended by Johanna Hanink, a classics professor at Brown. who accompanied us on our cruise, Pearls of Antiquity, to Greece and Turkey.\u00c2\u00a0 I have to admit that I didn’t know much about Greek and Roman settlements in the Greek Isles and Asia Minor prior to going on this trip.\u00c2\u00a0 Virtually all of our lectures focused on Greek mythology and art and most of our excursions were to ancient Greek and Roman ruins.\u00c2\u00a0 At the same time I\u00c2\u00a0could see\u00c2\u00a0that I was in two vastly different countries and I had very little understanding about either of them, particularly given the current turmoil that each of them is experiencing. This book helped me to gain a great deal of knowledge about them\u00c2\u00a0and insight\u00c2\u00a0into their more recent histories.<\/p>\n
The book is primarily about the lives of some of the common people living near what is currently called Fethiye on the west cost of Turkey starting prior to World War I.\u00c2\u00a0 During that time ethnic Greeks and Turks (Christians and Muslims) lived pretty much side by side in the Ottoman Empire without a great deal of discord.\u00c2\u00a0 The book highlights the events that took place and how they affected both the Christians and the Muslims living in the small town.<\/p>\n
The author’s prose is extremely readable and the story is compelling, although a bit brutal at times.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite this, I found the reading to be somewhat of a chore at times.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps this was due to the very small print which made the book seem to be much longer than its 554 pages.\u00c2\u00a0 The characters in the book, although fictional, seemed to capture the essence of the place.<\/p>\n
The combined effect of\u00c2\u00a0our trip to Greece and Turkey and the reading of this book causes me to wonder about the impacts of civilization.\u00c2\u00a0 With so much philosophy, art, architecture, etc., generated in this region of the earth, why is it that the only way that a people can live in harmony is by getting rid of everyone who is different from them?\u00c2\u00a0 It seems that no amount of culture can deter the human race’s ability to inflict mayhem on other human beings.<\/p>\n
Although I have arrived at a somewhat depressing conclusion, this is a very good novel and I recommend it to anyone who has the perseverance to read it through.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Louis de Berni\u00c3\u00a8res, 2004, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House Inc., New York This book was recommended by Johanna Hanink, a classics professor at Brown. who accompanied us on our cruise, Pearls of Antiquity, to Greece and Turkey.\u00c2\u00a0 …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[15,19],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-four-star","tag-fiction","tag-historical-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}