Greece cast its sudden spell on Emma Tennant's parents in the
mid-1960s. As a result they decided to live their dream, bought
land on the west coast of Corfu, and built a house there. This
charming book is the record of a brave venture which was rewarded
in all sorts of unexpected ways. Achieving the idyll they
visualised was not without its difficulties: apart from the
idiosyncrasies of Greek builders, with their unique methods and
flexible attitude to time, there was no electricity, no telephone,
no proper road and extremely scarce water (an eccentric English
diviner was called in at one stage), while difficulty of access and
frequent bad weather often meant a frightening degree of isolation.
But with quiet persistence and a certain insouciance of spirit the
house, designed to blend with landscape and seascape, was built.
Although it is called Rovinia, meaning ruin, it is still there, and
still very much a home. The 1960s were a crucial time in Greece
politically, economically and culturally, but Tennant's evocative
writing shows the reader what it means to inhabit an ancient
landscape and to become acquainted with a culture unchanged for
hundreds of years. The author and her family attended christenings,
engagements, weddings and funerals, all of which are lovingly and
vividly described, as are the scents, sounds and sights of 'one of
the most beautiful places on earth'. Tennant has a keen eye for
specific personalities and for the quicksilver eccentricities of
the rural Greek character. She is, however, careful to point out
that Greece is a large place and one of infinite variety, rightly
describing Corfu as being 'the extreme edge of the Latin world',
with a history very different from that of, say, the Peloponnese.
If you cannot live the Mediterranean dream, do the next best thing:
read this delightful book. (Kirkus UK)
A House in Corfu is the story of one of the most beautiful places on earth, still astonishingly unspoilt, on the west coast of Corfu. In the early 1960s, Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there. This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set in 42 hectares of land above the bay where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the people who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove at the time of putting on the roof - Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband Thodoros - and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay.
Full of colour and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the building of the house, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world; the world of vine, olive and sea.
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