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When the Tree Sings Stratis Haviaras 9780283985706 Books

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When the Tree Sings Stratis Haviaras 9780283985706 Books

A poetic view from a boy's point of view when his village in the Peloponnese is under the German occupation. Lots of mythical references, and a view of peasant life under hard times. Some magic included.


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When the Tree Sings Stratis Haviaras 9780283985706 Books Reviews

I first read this little book many years ago. It is one you will never forget. It describes the life of a boy in a small Greek village, first under the Nazi occupation, and then during the civil war that follows WWII. The author skillfully includes the hardships of life with the joys; the mysticism of ancient traditions and modern intrusions of technology and warfare. The imagery this book draws up makes it unforgettable.
The cover of this book is deceptively pastoral, because a world of casual brutality as well as timeless beauty awaits within its pages. Set in a Greek village during the Second World War, firmly under Nazi occupation, the story is seen & recalled through the memories of a boy, well aware of cruelty & injustice, yet also aware of the golden haze of tradition & imagination. It's written in remarkable prose, which utilizes bold, even harsh strokes of sunlight & shadow, while maintaining a gorgeous lyricism. The senses are all engaged in palpable detail & immediacy, so that the reader is there in the midst of all that happens. At times this is almost unbearable; but such is the author's skill that we continue reading anyway.

Recounted in short blocks of prose, which function like individual images of startling intensity, the story unfolds in a series of vivid memories. I hesitate to call it stream-of-consciousness, because while one image leads naturally to the next, there's never a sense of idle meandering or digression. The narrative thread isn't always visible, but it connects everything. There's a stark honesty here that seems completely Greek, reaching back to the poets of Homer's time. Even its delicate beauties are pitiless. Once read, it won't be forgotten -- highly recommended!
Long out of print (but sometimes found in bargain second-hand, and illustrated, first editions at , mine in exquisite condition, having mislaid the late 70s Picador paperback many years ago) this is a masterpiece of 20th century Greek literature. Haviaras, for a long time the head of Harvard University poetry library, is foremost a poet, but his first foray into English prose fiction is a magic-realist rendition of life in a rural Greek village during the Nazi occupation. The writer I would compare himself most with is Michael Ondaatje (think 'In the Skin of a Lion'), but his voice is his own, with a poetic intensity similar to Seferis's 'Mythistorema' or Nikos Gatsos's delirious 'Amorgos'. I believe he is now based back in Greece, where he has been taken up by a younger generation of writers such as the brilliant postmodernist Amanda Michalopoulou. That this and the novel that followed it, 'The Heroic Age', about the Greek Civil War, have been unavailable so long is baffling. I doubt there has been a Greek novel in English like it since.
Lovely, sad poetic prose. I was expecting a story but received instead what reads like a collection of instances or memories, which I think compliments the mood of it.
A poetic view from a boy's point of view when his village in the Peloponnese is under the German occupation. Lots of mythical references, and a view of peasant life under hard times. Some magic included.