Head of Orpheus Singing is a tender and touching evocation of life on a Greek island and of a friendship between a middle-aged widower and a young Greek boy which is fated not to bloom.
From the moment Mr Aspros arrives in the Small village of Terpsithéa he feels - and becomes - another man. Before, he had just been plain ‘Tobias White.’ But the villagers, who immediately take him to their hearts find that rather difficult to pronounce, and as ‘aspros’ is Greek for ‘white’ that is what they decide to call this Australian of unusual habits (he takes milk in his coffee but not sugar, says old Yaya in amazement, and he shaves every day!)
Mr Aspros’ Special friend is Euripides, the young son of Mrs Melpo in whose home Mr Aspros has taken a room. Together, Euripides and Mr Aspros learn something of each other's language and the young boy Introduces the newcomer to all the rituals and habits of island lite. It is, they both find, an ideal relationship.
But Mrs Mélpo is preparing to join her husband in Australia and - of course, she is going to take Euripides and the old grandmother Yaya with her. At first, their departure seems a long way off but as the day draws closer for the family to sail off to the other side of the world Mr Aspros realises how much he is going to miss them - especially Euripides. He has. It is true, plenty of other friends on the island, both amongst the villagers and the other visitors. There is Frau Monika von Berg, for instance, the jolly German lady of uncertain age who gets rather too involved with the island’s handsome young fisherman; and there’s Papa Evangelos, and Stavros the shepherd - and a whole host of others.
Corfu : A Novel
Sydney
:
Picador
,
2001
Z895119
2001
single work
novel
'"House in Gastouri for rent for 2 mths. Occupant travelling. Reasonable rent."
In a village on the island of Corfu, alone in the cottage of a man he's never met, a young Australian actor pieces together the strange life story of the writer whose house he's living in. As he explores his surroundings and makes new friends in Corfu, his own life begins to appear to him like an illuminating shadow-play of his absent host's.
Set in the physical landscapes of the Greek islands, Adelaide and the suburbs of London, Robert Dessaix's second novel is about friendship, love, the ordinary and extraordinary. Yet at its core is a perfectly placed meditation on literary landscapes–Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov–and the part art can play in making our lives beautiful' (publisher blurb).
Corfu : A Novel
Sydney
:
Picador
,
2001
Z895119
2001
single work
novel
'"House in Gastouri for rent for 2 mths. Occupant travelling. Reasonable rent."
In a village on the island of Corfu, alone in the cottage of a man he's never met, a young Australian actor pieces together the strange life story of the writer whose house he's living in. As he explores his surroundings and makes new friends in Corfu, his own life begins to appear to him like an illuminating shadow-play of his absent host's.
Set in the physical landscapes of the Greek islands, Adelaide and the suburbs of London, Robert Dessaix's second novel is about friendship, love, the ordinary and extraordinary. Yet at its core is a perfectly placed meditation on literary landscapes–Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov–and the part art can play in making our lives beautiful' (publisher blurb).
