Product Description

The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains, 20 years after first publication, in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges. Although Between the Woods and the Water was published nine years after A Time of Gifts, Fermor is famously still at work on the concluding part of his trilogy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17369 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'Between the Woods and the Water is a book so good your resent finishing it.' -- Sunday Times 'The finest travelling companion we could ever have... His head is stocked with cultural lore and poetic fancy to make every league an adventure.' Christopher Hudson -- Evening Standard 'As full of zest, joy and delight as its predecessor' -- Country Life 'He is exploring the very furthest boundaries of the genre.' -- Jan Morris, The Times 'The most enjoyable living writer to be published this year' -- Peter Levi, The Spectator 'I have never enjoyed a travel book more and I would doubt if I will ever enjoy one so much again' -- Robin Lane Fox 'Rightly considered to be among the most beautiful travel books in the language' -- Independent 20040814 'Bringing the landscape alive as no other writer can, he uses his profound and eclectic understanding of cultures and peoples ... to paint vivid pictures - nobody has illuminated the geography of Europe better' -- Geographical Magazine 20040801 'John Murray is doing the decent thing and reissuing all of Leigh Fermor's main books ... But what else would you expect from a publisher whose commitment to geography is such that for more than two centuries it has widened our understanding of the world?' -- Geographical Magazine 20040801 'For a spirited introduction [to the Balkans] try Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of a 1930s walk from Hungary to Romania and Bulgaria...rich in local history and a formative book in the rise of modern travel writing' - David Mattin -- The Times 20060422

Country Life
'As full of zest, joy and delight as its predecessor'

Jan Morris, The Times
'He is exploring the very furthest boundaries of the genre.'

Customer Reviews

Simply wonderful
This is the sequel to 'A Time of Gifts', and continues the young Leigh-Fermor's walk through the length of 1930s Europe. Here we start from where the previous book left off, at the border into Hungary, and continue through until the Iron Gates border between Rumania and Bulgaria. I immensely enjoyed 'A Time of Gifts', and this book is the perfect companion to it. It is a seamless mix between the world seen through the eager eyes of the nineteen-year-old Leigh Fermor, and a wealth of historical, geographical, linguisitc, and anthropological information, which must have taken most of the intervening decades for him to research. The one drawback of the book is the envy it is bound to create in the reader -- envy of his ability to take a journey such as this in a time now past, and envy (for those who also try to write) at the magnificent prose with which he has captured his memories. Patrick Leigh-Fermor's place in the ranks of the great writers of travel literature is already firmly established, and this is surely one of his finest. If reading this book doesn't inspire you to embark on a journey of your own, then I can only suggest you read it again, only this time with your eyes open.

A great classic - and much more
Leigh Fermor's great classic is extraordinary. His language is immensely beautiful, but I believe that the secret to understand the book is that he is actually painting pictures with words. There are some great set pieces in this second volume such as the Easter ceremonies in Hungary, his unforgettable aristocratic hosts and the chateau life he began to lead after Munich while still camping out from time to time. His descriptions of those country houses, and their denizens, particularly once he crosses into Romania, are like small jewels.

The great glory of this book is the trip he makes in Transylvania: it shows a world which no longer exists (Romanian, Hungarians, Swabians etc all living together in one area) and makes one wish to go there immediately.

Leigh Fermor is a polymath and the book is not really travel literature at all, or if it is, it is of a totally different order to anything I have ever read.

Will Leigh Fermor write the promised third part of the great trilogy?

Magical
I can only reiterate what the previous reviewer has written, you must read this book.

'Between the Woods and Water' is part two in the triology recounting PL-F's walk in 1933 from Holland to Istanbul. This book is an utter delight, the author must rank as one of the greatest travel writers alive.

There is so much charm, poetry and delight within these pages that it would be a tragic shame to miss out on them.