Product Description

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscien-tious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5030 in Books
• Published on: 1995-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is set in the early days of the second world war, before Benito Mussolini invaded Greece. Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn't so bad--at first anyway. The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of "Heil Hitler" with his own "Heil Puccini", and whose most precious possession is his mandolin. It isn't long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved in a heated affair--despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras, who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it touches.

British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays into magical realism in such novels as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. Here he keeps it to a minimum, though certainly the secondary characters with whom he populates his island--the drunken priest, the strongman, the fisherman who swims with dolphins--would be at home in any of his wildly imaginative Latin American fictions. Instead, de Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history as he tells his ever-darkening tale from many different perspectives. Captain Corelli's Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war story and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make it into the history books.

Review
Set on the Greek island of Cephalonia, this is a tale of the inhabitants of that island throughout World War II. The story centres on the love between the doctor's daughter Pelagia and the Italian officer Antonio Corelli, with a pageant of other characters, animals, catastrophes and joys so rich, so funny, so rewarding, that only superlatives can be used to describe this luscious novel. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Louis de Bernieres' first three novels are The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Book Eurasia Region, 1991), Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book Eurasia Region, 1992), and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. The author was selected as one of the Granta twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993. Captain Corelli's Mandolin won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book, 1995. His most recent book is Birds Without Wings.

Customer Reviews

A Great Wartime Love Story!
This book is a fantastic read that starts toward the end of World War 2 and covers generations.
The tale tells of a young Greek girl and an eccentric Italian Captain finding love during the Italian "occupation" of the Greek island of Cephallonia, although the Italian army hardly treats it as such due to disenchantment with having to fight for reasons & ideals they do not share with their leaders.
The author creates extremely tangible scenes, people & feelings that you're left feeling like you really knew the characters & places.
There are a few strange plot-holes but this in no way detracts from the overall story and I was actually quite gutted that it had to end!
A really good read that everyone will enjoy & appreciate I think.

masterpiece
I'll keep this short - plenty of the reviewers here are clearly budding authors!


Absolutely brilliant, should be on GCSE reading list. I havnt read as good a book in many years.


Dont be put off by the film which downgraded the book into a chick-flick.

A moving but flawed novel - well worth reading
There are lots of things to like about this book - I won't list them all because so many other people have, but the things that stand out are Captain Corelli's character (how could they have have cast depressive Nicholas Cage in the film? Roberto Benigni - of 'Life is Beautiful' - was the only possible choice), Pelagia's lovable shrewishness, the humour, unsentimentality, quirkiness and excellent war passages, conveying the horror and brutality of combat and the destructiveness of prejudice and hatred. Problems are De Berniere's self-indulgence, cleverness and tendency to take intrusive authorial stands on political situations, which would be better presented through the characters, leaving us to make up our own minds. The biggest failure of this book is the last 60 pages or so, in which a frantic dash through the history of the island so he can include the earthquake means that Corelli and Pelagia cannot meet up again until they are toothless OAPs. Apart from the frustration of being told in bald summaries the fate of people like the doctor, with whom we have been intimately involved,anyone who has ever lived on a Greek island will know that it is impossible for someone (especially a foreigner) to sneak onto it and creep around unseen. For me the confused beginning and the drawn out ending marred what was a wonderful and moving read, but I would highly recommend it nevertheless. But avoid the film at all costs!