Between the Woods and the Water (New York Review Books Classics)

• Paperback - 03 October, 2005 - New York Review Books Classics
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• By: Patrick Leigh Fermor and Jan Morris
• ISBN: 1590171667

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Reviews by readers

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

Fermor's journey begun in A TIME OF GIFTS continues in this companion volume. Like its predecessor, it is an exhausting, at times frustrating, demanding read, and equally worthwhile. The reader is cautioned that he or she must be prepared every few paragraphs to look up words the reader has never heard of before, or to look up words used in ways the reader has never used in the same way before; to trace Fermor's topographical references on outside maps, since none are provided by the book; and to have access to outside sources to comprehend Fermor's references to frequently unexplained, or cursorily explained, peoples, places and events. (If I may lodge any criticism about both A TIME OF GIFTS and BETWEEN THE WOODS AND THE WATER, it is that Fermor assumes the reader to be intimately familiar with the arcane. Because that assumption may be inaccurate, the uninitiated reader might profit from the creation of an additional volume, a guide, that is, to both books that consists of maps, a glossary, annotations, and a bibliography. Readers who make the effort to keep up with Fermor should not constantly be made to feel he is about to leave them behind in a cloud of dust as he speeds down some remote Rumanian highway lost in his remarkable thoughts.) BETWEEN THE WOODS AND THE WATER differs only slightly from A TIME OF GIFTS in that fewer architectural treasures are encountered and commented upon. But, like the latter, it is the beauty and quiet of the earth, the common people, an endearing cast of lovable, clueless aristocrats, and the colorful histories that surround them all, that are the stars of the show. And it is Fermor's fascinating inner life and winsome personality that make these books the joy and the education they are.

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