Destination: An Anonymous Greek Island

Book: Pascali’s Island by Barry Unsworth (1980)

We move today to an early book by Barry Unsworth about treachery and deceit in pre-modern Greece.

Pascali’s Island deals with many of the same themes as Land of Marvels, a book he wrote about archaeologists in Iraq. I did not care for that book,  But in this literary novel,  Pascali’s Island, everything works. The author focuses once again on the dying  Ottoman empire and the struggle of the Americans, British and Germans to pick up the spoils. But here the story spotlights the rot and corruption of the weakening government instead of the imperialistic aims of the stronger nations.

Another similarity to Land of Marvels comes with the ever shifting line between truth and self-serving lies, and the exploration of the act of story telling.  The main character, an informer to the Ottoman ruler can be defined by a circular equation: writer = informant =spy = writer. Writers/spies tell tales that  recreate people, action and scenes so that someone else can draw meaning from the words.

Pascali tells us plainly that he is an undependable narrator. Not only does he state, through his reports to the Sultan that he  sometimes invents people and events, but he also wanders far away from the task and embellishes with so many details that the reader wants to scream, “Get to the point!” However, gradually, one realizes that the wandering IS the point.

Because of Pascali’s charming diversions into scene setting, Pascali’s Island becomes an appealing book for travelers.  Not only does it lend some insight into a formative point of Greek history, but it also paints a picture of a Greek island that rings very true.  Oddly, even though the island is never named–we know only it is in the Eastern Aegean, near Turkey–the descriptions seem to be so precise that you could paint it.

“Below me I can follow the sweep of the bay as far as the headland, and see beyond to the pale heights of the mainland, across the straits.  In this thickening of atmosphere, the sand and stones of the shore appear slightly smoky, as if enveloped thinly in their own breath.  Beyond this the sea is opaline, gashed near the horizon by a long, gleaming line of light. The light fumes upward into the sky.”

Reading a passage like that, I found myself thinking, yes, it is exactly like that, and then snapping back to realize that he was not describing a real place, but rather an amalgam of Aegean islands–perhaps the Platonic ideal of Aegean Island. Unsworth/Pascali speaks frequently of the quality of the light, which always impresses visitors to Greece. But also refers to truth as light when he says that “humans could not live long in the light, it would shrivel them up.”

Finally, I cannot resist quoting his comment on writing. Pascali says parenthetically in a report, that he has recently discovered he has a wish to suffer and gives examples. “That is why I became a writer of reports, Excellency.  Otherwise why would I wrestle with words, go on wrestling, when every bout ends with me thudding to the canvas.”

I would say that in Pascali’s Island, the decision goes to Unsworth.

Photograph by VMB. All rights reserved.