The Island, by Victoria Hislop - 9 October

Nine of us, including two new members, met amidst the sparsely re-stocked shelves of the newly renamed Le Bookshop on October 9th to discuss The Island, by Victoria Hislop, the story of four generations of women whose lives were affected by the Greek leper colony of Spinalonga, off the north coast of Crete. Great-grandmother Eleni suffered from leprosy and was exiled to Spinalonga in 1939. Her great-granddaughter Alexis lives in London, but travels to Crete to try to learn some of the secrets that her mother Sofia has tried to bury with her past - secrets about the lives of Eleni's daughters Maria and Anna, one of whom was also exiled to Spinalonga, but was cured of leprosy. Chris, who recommended the book, said she had read it a long time ago, and recently re-read it. She mentioned that the author was grieving for a friend who was dying of breast cancer when she wrote the book. Chris chose to make only a short presentation because she wanted to allow others to participate in the discussion. I think she was not disappointed.

Chris thought she remembered reading more about Eleni, but, in fact, Eleni dies fairly early in the story. Chris felt Eleni to be "poignant," and said she could not imagine what it would be like to say good-bye to one's children. Eleni had an illness that people did not understand, and, as is now the case with AIDS, victims were alienated and ostracized. It should be noted that, despite the fact that a cure exists, many people throughout the world still suffer from leprosy. Jan wondered why there are so many case of leprosy in India when the disease is "easier to cure than the common cold."

Katharine J and Maggie felt that the book was not well written; other members agreed, but had not noticed a conflict between details in the narration and reality. For example, Maggie wondered why the wife of the owner of a taverna in a tiny village on the island of Crete would remember, or even know, the chemical name for a leprosy treatment drug. Also, when Sofia joins her daughter Alexis at her old friend Fotini's house in Plaka in 2001, the text says that Fotini has not seen Sofia for twenty years. Yet Sofia had returned to Crete once before, for her aunt Maria's funeral in 1995, and it's hard to imagine that Fotini would not have attended her best friend's funeral. This is probably nit-picking, but Louise lived in Crete and said that the character of Sofia was entirely improbable. Girls in Crete at that time would never have been allowed out of the house unsupervised in the evening. Even Chris agreed that the book was not well written and seemed a bit amateurish, like a serial in a women's magazine. (The author does, in fact, write for some.) Chris doesn't usually like what she calls "beach books," but she became interested in the story and was curious to find out what happened. She felt that it gave some fascinating insights into what life must have been like for lepers, and for people in an occupied country, during World War II, but she would have liked to know more ("without being morbid") about the other lepers, and to have a more general picture. She found the passionate romances to be a bit at odds with the subject of the novel, and thus found the whole a bit hard to believe and rather unreal. Nevertheless, she found it "different," and enjoyed it in the end.

Chris said she could not identify with anyone except perhaps Eleni. She said she felt compassion for Eleni's husband, Giorgis, who was so stoic and devoted, and had such a sense of responsibility. She liked both the doctors and their dedication to their work. Karen said all the characters were "SO nice," except for Anna, who was "so NOT nice." Chris asked if anyone actually felt sorry for Anna. She said she kept waiting for Maria to do something not nice, and for Anna to do something nice. Laurence said she felt the whole story was "so simplistic, so exaggerated." She was bothered by the good girl versus bad girl situation, and the fact that the good girl was such a good girl, and such a good housekeeper. Jan said that it's true that two siblings can be so different, and continue to go their opposite ways. Karen mentioned roles in families, where one takes over and "fills space." The characters were felt to be too black and white. Jan said they were not "filled out," were flat.

Karen mentioned that her daughter is married to a Greek, and Karen "knows Greek weddings" (although she admits to having slept through the ceremony). She said her daughter's baptism into the Greek Orthodox church was closer to a Jewish ceremony than to a Catholic one.

After we had discussed the characters, Chris brought up the question of the secret. Should Sofia have unburdened herself? Her life seems to have been controlled by her shame. "She convinced herself that the act of not telling something was very different from telling something that was untrue." Her children "would be guarded from their roots and forever protected from the deep shame of the past." The "shame" of the disease of leprosy. The "shame" of being raised by people who weren't her parents but who had not admitted it to her. Chris said that children don't care what their parents might have done "wrong." They just want their parents to be there, and to be together, even if there's fighting. Karen said it's getting to the point where she thinks that every second family has skeletons in the closet. Maggie was surprised that Sofia had no documents regarding her birth and the names of her parents at her birth. (Chris said she was looking for too many details in the story.) We questioned how Sofia could have gone to university without providing documents about her background. Louise said that wouldn't have been necessary in Greece. If you didn't know people in high places, you paid! Laurence was surprised that, after talk of the war years, there was no mention of life under the colonels.

Chris said she was glad she had proposed the book, and so were the rest of us. It might be boring to always read great literature.

At the end of the meeting, Chris mentioned a book, French Folies, written by Sharon Maxa, a member of her former book club near Carcassonne. She said the author changed the names of the characters, but it was still obvious to her who they were. She wonders how the author can still live there. Katharine J mentioned The Pheasant Plucker, a political thriller based in Montpellier and supposedly set in part in the bookshop where we hold our meetings. Jan recommended a semi-autobiographical thriller, Shantaram, which is 900 pages long, and was also recommended by SueRou. Jan said that the author, Gregory David Roberts, is married to a Swiss princess. I looked him up on the web, and his biographical notes are a story in themselves. ("In his 57 years, the Australian author has robbed banks, escaped from prison, been a doctor in a Mumbai slum, joined the Mafia, fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan and married a princess. The experiences form the basis of "Shantaram", a novel loosely based on his life.")

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