Dinner with Persephone: Travels in Greece: Amazon.ca: Patricia Storace: Books

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For many, Greece is a land lost in time. It conjures up images of the looming Parthenon with its pillars of marble and the timeless whitewashed buildings of its parched islands glinting against a backdrop of the crystal blue Mediterranean. But ask about contemporary Greece and most people draw a blank. In Dinner with Persephone, poet Patricia Storace does a compelling job of filling in this empty canvas. She conjures a country where history and modernity coexist in often surprising ways, and with the past as an ineluctable backdrop, Storace paints in the everyday details that bring the country and its people vividly to life. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A scoop of ice cream decorated with pomegranate seeds is the Persephone of the title?a Greek confection the author orders at a patisserie in Athens where she and a companion stop after a climb to the theater of Dionysus. Her companion chooses a "Leda"?two scoops of vanilla covered with rosettes and studded with tiny paper Greek flags. These are apt symbols of the great past that dominates the everyday life and consciousness of modern Greeks. Like them, Storace smoothly entwines her own daily encounters, during the year she lived in Athens, with the country's history and legends, current politics and neighborhood activities. A prize-winning poet, she has the advantage of a facility with the language, and has access to Greek friends and cultural guides who are often as probing and intellectual as she is. Her journal of that year provides minutely detailed observations, conversations, shopping tours, parties, religious and national holidays, passengers on a bus, street noises, visits to historic spots and even the plots of Greek movies. Though sometimes exasperating in its indiscriminate detail, at the same time the book immerses the reader more deeply than do many other accounts of an American abroad in a vibrant sense of the country's past and present.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

39 Reviews

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4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
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3.6 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars JUST OKAY, April 6 2004

By

kitty oskin (New York, N.Y) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dinner with Persephone: Travels in Greece (Paperback)

The prose is lovely. Ms. Storace is a published poet and this shines through in her prose. I think, however, that this is not a positive portrait of Greece and its people. Many Greeks offered their generous hospitality to the author and I don't think it is proper to repay them by trashing their beliefs and ways.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Bird's Milk, Jan 17 2003

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D. R. Ransdell (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dinner with Persephone: Travels in Greece (Paperback)

This rich account is for the dedicated enthusiast who wants to know as much about Greece as possible. Though sometimes repetitive, Storace's journey through the country is informative and educational: in my umpteen trips to Athens' "The Old Man of Morea Taverna," only now do I know that the reference is to a famous general. She points out ironies of Greek life such as the way the country embraces yet rejects the rest of Europe ("Greece is neither western nor eastern Europe, but oriental Europe, where Europe and the Middle East live together, although they may pretend they have never met") and the fact that love and violence are an integral part of daily life. Storace explains idiomatic terms such as "fthonos," "poisonous omnipresent jealousy" and "We even have bird's milk," a phrase used by grocers to hint that they have absolutely everything. Actually, I'm the one who's jealous. During my own year in Greece, I wasn't invited to half as many interesting parties and events. Storace's sense of humor puts things in perspective: "Although there are certain kinds of men I find irresistible, my temptations don't include married Greek dry cleaners." I had only minor disagreements: I've never found the Ionian Sea warmer than the Aegean, I like Corfu's Achilleion, and I'm not convinced all literary tragedies have happy endings. Her writing is often poetic and lyrical. For example, she describes the "sexual, tender, exalted, and tragic moment as candle touches candle, brief life kindling brief life, again and again, like the moment of conception." I can certainly sympathize with her feelings about leaving Greece: "Tonight I am saying goodbye the way Athenians do, that is, by staying up all night and trying to stop time." The working title of my own novel was "Going and Going to Greece." The country is magical--Storace's book helps us understand some reasons why.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Aug 12 2002

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Lauren Hahn (Mundelein, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dinner with Persephone: Travels in Greece (Paperback)

First of all, I've read some of the other customer reviews and frankly, I wonder if some of these people got past the first 20 pages. If you're looking for a light, chatty book about restaurants and resorts, this ain't the book for you. If you want easy beach reading, look elsewhere. Storace is an extremely intelligent person who is not just hanging out in Greece, but who really attempts to understand its culture and to make connections with Greece's past and present. I thought this was one of the most delightful travel books I've ever read. And anyone who says that Storace is provincial and has never encountered people from other cultures just hasn't read carefully. (As for the customer who said she's "not a newyorker"--she attended Columbia U, for God's sake!) I love the way that Storace delves into classical Greece. This is perhaps because I studied Greek in college and have read lots of Homer in the original, as has Storace. She tapped into my fascination with Ancient Greece and its remnants in the modern world. I ended up buying copies of this book for several of my friends who I knew would enjoy it, because I couldn't bear to part with my copy of this book.

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Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a newyorker
I have been living in Greece for the past 15 years. Ms. Storace's book captures the beauty of the natural enviroment in rich, creative language which does credit to her poet's... Read more

Published on Oct 27 2001 by Dolores Protagoras-Lianos MD

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful prose, but...
"Dinner with Persephone" chronicles Patricia Storace's experiences and observations during a year she spent living and traveling in Greece. Read more

Published on Aug 7 2001 by B-Track