Peel Me a Lotus
Peel Me a Lotus by Charmian Clift is a Hydra travel writing classic, describing her family’s life on this tiny Greek island near Athens in the 1950s.
Peel Me a Lotus is
the successor to Charmian Clift’s excellent book about living on Kalymnos, Mermaid Singing. That book began in 1954
when she and her husband, and their two children, left London to live on
Kalymnos in the Dodecanese. The follow-up takes up their story after they have
moved to Hydra in the Saronic Gulf Islands near Athens, where a new baby
arrives and they become part of a growing community of writers and artists.
Hydra would become more famous a few years later when a
Canadian poet named Leonard Cohen went to live there, and people including Eric
Clapton, John Lennon and various Rolling Stones all visited. By then more
tourism had also began to change the island, although at the time of Peel Me a Lotus the only visitors were
Athenians arriving for the weekend.
Another Hydra resident is the British author Polly Samson
and her husband, the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. Samson provides an
entertaining introduction to Peel Me a Lotus where, amongst other things, she
reveals the names of the real people who appear in the book under pseudonyms.
One was ‘Ursula’, the wife of the artist Sidney Nolan, and she was so offended
by her admittedly rather wicked portrait in the book that she ended her
friendship with Clift.
Hydra
Another character, ‘Jacques’, is an extremely pretentious
French artist. It adds an extra layer of interest to the book when you learn
from the introduction that he and Clift eventually became lovers, despite her cruel
depiction of him, and it triggered the end of her marriage.
One of the more interesting – if depressing – sections of
the book is when an American film crew descends on Hydra to shoot the 1957
film, Boy on a Dolphin. They tear the
main town apart – literally, in places – but pump much-needed money into the local
economy. Especially the bars.
Mermaid Singing
The book is one of contrasting moods. The antics of the
Bohemian crowd of artists and writers can be hilarious, with the author keeping
an objective distance and painting a punishing portrait of them. On the other
hand, there is much more introspection than in Mermaid Singing, with the author frequently in a melancholy mood.
Another difference between this and the previous book
(reviewed here)
is that while the first one describes the fascinating and often surprising
lives of her poor Greek neighbours, here the focus is very much on the ex-pats,
whose lives aren’t as interesting as they think they are. We’re all familiar
with pretentious artists and struggling poets, but knew little about the lives
of sponge fishermen before reading Mermaid
Singing.
Hydra
Hydra Travel Writing
Classic
Despite these drawbacks, it’s still fair to call this a
Hydra travel writing classic, to go on the bookshelves alongside A Rope of Vines by the Welsh author and
artist Brenda Chamberlain. Chamberlain must have arrived on Hydra not long
after Charmian Clift left, and a back-to-back reading would be interesting.
Peel Me a Lotus is
published by Muswell Press and available from their website,
as well as worldwide on Amazon.
Other books pages
Greece Book Reviews on the Greece Travel Secrets website with reviews of the best guidebooks to Greece, the Greek Islands, Athens, Crete and elsewhere.
Greece Travel Secrets reviews the Greek cookbook, The Ikaria Way by Diane Kochilas, containing 100 delicious plant-based recipes.
There are many great Greek poets, with two authors winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and names include Sappho, Cavafy, George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis.
A Thing of Beauty by Peter Fiennes describes ‘Travels in Mythical and Modern Greece’ and places the Greek Gods in the context of modern-day Greece.
The Lonely Planet guide to the Greek Islands is a thorough and helpful guide to all the Greek island groups, with Athens included.
The latest edition of the Lonely Planet travel guide to Greece is a comprehensive 750-page guidebook to the whole country.
Lonely Planet Crete is an excellent and thorough guide of almost 300 pages to the largest of the Greek islands.
The Bradt Guide to the Peloponnese is the best book on the Greek region which includes attractions like Mycenae, Epidavros, Olympia, Monemvasia and Nafplion.
A Rope of Vines by Brenda Chamberlain is an evocative memoir of the author’s time living on the Greek island of Hydra in the early 1960s.
Wild Abandon by Jennifer Barclay and published by Bradt Guides is A Journey to Deserted Places of the Dodecanese islands in Greece, including Rhodes and Kos.
The Summer of My Greek Taverna by Tom Stone is a memoir of his time on the Greek island of Patmos in the Dodecanese, running a restaurant.
Taverna by the Sea is an account by Jennifer Barclay of her summer spent working in a taverna on Karpathos and a welcome new book of Greek travel writing.
The Bradt Guide to Northern Greece is a detailed guide to Thessaloniki, Halkidiki, Macedonia, Thrace, The Pelion, The Sporades and the rest of Northern Greece.
Greece Travel Secrets reviews the photography book Monemvasia with extracts from works by Yiannis Ritsos and Nikos Kazantzakis.
Mermaid Singing by Charmian Clift is a fine example of 1950s travel writing about the Greek island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese.
Margarita’s Olive Press is a modern gem of a book of Greek travel writing, in which the author falls in love with and renovates a property on Zakynthos.
Ikaria by Meni Valle, brings together the best and healthiest Greek recipes with an evocative travelogue about Ikaria, one of the world’s Blue Zone places.
Fire on the Island is a romantic thriller novel by Timothy Jay Smith set on a fictionalised version of the town of Molyvos on the island of Lesbos.
Eurydice Street, A Place in Athens by Sofka Zinovieff is an honest account of what it’s like to move to Athens and live as a foreigner, learning Greek customs.
Greece Travel Secrets reviews the book Culture Trails by Lonely Planet, which has a section on Artistic Athens and 51 other perfect weekends for culture lovers.
The 2022 edition of the A-Z Travel Guide to Kos is the 15th edition of the best and most comprehensive guidebook to Kos in the Dodecanese islands of Greece.
The very thorough A-Z Guide to Santorini by Tony Oswin is now in its 15th edition, a sure sign that the guidebook is both popular and kept up-to-date.
Heaven on Earth is a collection of 19 travel pieces about Greece by Mike Gerrard.
If planning a trip to Greece, what are the best books about Greece to read before you go, or to take with you, to give you a sense of place?
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