This book should have been a third shorter. As a reader, you are stuck with him for 437 pages. He’s the kind of man you meet and think he’s swell until two days later when you realize what he’s all about. His real darling had to wait 24 years before he’d marry her, opening her wallet all along.
His calling every woman “darling” really grated on me.
But so does his selfishness, studied cunning, and flattery. His writing is heavenly and the man’s charm permeates every page. Letters, Leigh Fermor is the subject of the book. I had a love-hate relationship with this book. When the fates bless you with charm, good looks, brains, an ear for languages and writing skills, what do you do? You smooch off others your entire life. The word bon vivant was coined to describe Patrick Leigh Fermor. His warmth for Bruce Chatwin has even given me pause, given my recent denouncement. He was hampered by having the best intentions, something which kept from working apace and the his capacity for consequent lament was near limitless.
He was also a connoisseur in a near universal sense, something straight out of an ad for Mexican lager. There are certain themes in the seventy years of letters. This solidified his placement in the weekending elite. Known for the Great Trudge, his epic walk to Constantinople, he gained immediate fame in WWII by his heroic exploits on Crete. Following Whitman (and as of this week, Zimmerman) he contained multitudes and was in my estimation an embodiment of the lore intricate history of the entire Mediterranean. Equally erudite and snobbish he lived a remarkable life and apparently everyone wanted him to spend the weekend with them, ready for a night of learned banter, amazing puns and a an infectious spirit which embraced the ancient as well as the hedonistic. Even when PLF was being a shit, he had a certain elegance about him.
This collection traces an arc across the adult life of the author, an impressive arc that, he was 96 when he passed. There were no unexpected detours in my reading.
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