Facing Athens: Encounters with the Modern City

Hardcover - 09 June, 2004 - North Point Press
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By: George Sarrinikolaou
ISBN: 0865476993

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Reviews by readers

Don't miss this one

When you travel to Cairo, or Beijing, or Athens, you can focus your tourist eyes and attention on Pyramids, the Forbidden City, the Parthenon, and the people of the past. Or you can open your eyes and mind wider and also attempt to understand the cities and the people who live today in the shadows of antiquity. "Facing Athens" is for the latter group of travelers.

George Sarrinikolaou faces Athens with eyes and mind wide open, with the memories of an Athenian child, and with a transplanted heart and soul that he also must open wider to accomplish his search for discovery and rediscovery.

What results is a not only deft portrait of today's realities in a great and changing city, but a study that often can be applied, at least in part, to other cities (and countries). From it, a reader's own mind can formulate glimpses of what the future may hold for Athens and the world.

"Facing Athens" is must-read for any thoughtful traveler who believes she/he is, or wishes to be, a true world citizen...and any armchair traveler who enjoys seeing through the eyes of the beholder.

Hard to Hide

I think the author does a good job of describing and capturing the 'uglier' aspects of today's Athens (which certainly need to be discussed further), but leans towards the dour, missing many of the more positive aspects of life in Athens. As with many large, compact cities, our impressions can change from day to day. With Athens, and Greece in general, the best and the worst of humanity seem to become more apparent and immediate to the senses. I don't know why; maybe it's the close quarters.

The issues that Sarrinikolaou artfully raises can be unsettling to those in the Greek Diaspora and should stir discussion. Our impressions of Greece and what it means to be Greek are based (for myself and for many, I believe) on the rural/island traditions and kinship ties of our parents/grandparents. The problems that face modern Athens are not a part of that inherited image and can be easily overlooked.

But,I find that the more time I spend in the city and settle into its peculiar rhythm, the 'village' is made visible in many of the neighborhoods. From late night group sings in a small apartment and familiarity of corner shops and kiosks, to an entire street helping someone park their car, the city is different from what I expected it, or even may want it to be. But it's also more exciting, unpredictable, provocative, and yes, often comforting.

Not really about Athens

This is mostly a book about urban decay and the flight to the suburbs. While the specific examples are from Athens, the same words could describe the Bronx or the French banlieus. Because ownsership of cars spread in Greece later than in the United States its effects start appearing in the 1970s, later than in the US. I lived in Athens between 1940 and 1961 and when I visited the country in the late 1970's what struck me was that the Greeks were repeating all the errors that led to American (and Western European) urban problems. However few people ever learn from the errors of others. Other parts of the book deal with the superficial Greek church attendence, common in any country where there is an established church, and corruption, also common in several countries and certainly in the Middle East. (The heritage of the Ottoman empire of which the Balcans and the Middle East used to be part of.) He describes the contrast between affluent Greeks and the illegal Albanian immigrants who tend their gardens but, again, the same words could also describe American suburbanites and the illegal Latin American immigrants who tend their gardens.

Because the author left Greece when he was only 10 years old, he may have had an idealized image of the place and was disappointed by the reality. I left Greece as an adult (after college and military service) and any time I go back I enjoy the place. Overall it has changed for the better. (I stay away from the blighted urban areas for the same reason I stay away from blighted urban areas anywhere else.)

The best thing I can say about the book is that it short, only 144 pages, so I did not waste too much time reading it.

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