Cypria:
A Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean
A Gripping New History of Cyprus
by Alex Christofi (Bloomsbury Continuum)
In the introduction, the Author describes his struggle with writing a book on Cyprus, until he realizes the way to write the book is to write a series of perspectives about Cyprus that can composite into a book. Having recently read Wild New World, I assert that if you feel like inventing a new way to do history, don’t.
The book is the history of Cyprus, the island in the eastern Mediterranean, starting from with before human habitation in pre-history and ending in the contemporary world. It is poetic. Mixing history, memoir, and travel-writing, the text dances. The Author’s chops as a writer of fiction are in evidence.
The book has a tendency to print the legend, particularly about history related to but not about Cyprus. If there is some historical ambiguity, it will always take the sexiest option. It gets a bit silly when it plays “that’s Cypriot”1 on everything from the house cat to the Ford Administration. True, though, that is one of the things that attracted me to read the book in the first place, in the sense of how often Cyprus is relevant in Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean History.
But then there is a second book within the book.
Second book is a history of the more troubled points of Cyprus’ recent past, from the British annexation to the division of Cyprus. The second book is a conventional history. Notably, these chapters still have the personal anecdotes of the other chapters, but they are a brief aside as opposed to chapter theme as in the rest of the book, and most of the time feel tacked on. Notably, after the modern status quo arrives, the lyrical style and strong personality of the book returns for the closing.
The internal second book is more what you would expect from a popular history, with the exception that it is achronological. This is infuriating. The other part of the book is a little like this, but it is less disorienting when the text is dealing with generalities and trends instead of facts and dates. I think that, per the introduction, the intent is to group things more conceptually than orderly, but the results are odd.
For instance, the chapter on the post-war colony is before the chapter on what happens during the war. I think that this is meant to emphasize the divisions within Cypriot society, but putting reasoning after events British look more like foppish incompetents instead of the evil but reasoned realpolitik. There are a few things like that, where the choice creates what I think are unintended consequences.
I think that the author is trying to emphasize cultural norms and how that explains historical events. But whatever the reason, it meant a lot of page-flipping.
There is a real moral weight to this section. Colonialism and colonial projects are treated as something that happened Out There to The Other, but Cyprus (and Ireland, and Ukraine) are clear examples that the call is coming from inside the house. Cyprus is of critical import there. Cyprus does not scuttle the idea of The West, but it sure leaves some portholes open.
I also think that there is a question about how well a book written only by a Greek Cypriot can accomplish the sort of multifaceted gem approach of the Introduction. I know that the author did research there, and I would refrain from calling the book biased, but there were points where I felt that I needed more to the story, specifically in the context of the dual island cultures.
A good book, with a good topic, and an important message – an immediate and really important message, but structurally unpleasant. And like a movie, be sure to stick around for the post-credits sequence in the Acknowledgements. I teared up.
- For which I will let you chose between This American Life or Goodness Gracious Me. ↩︎
CITATION HEEDED 