The Island by Victoria Hislop
So, the tale begins the same way most tales do, for me atleast. I was shopping at wal-mart when a colorful cover caught my eye from the book section. Before this I had vowed never to get another book from the convienent store Goliath because, on more than one occasion the books purchased here became these literary excuses to own porn. But, this day and this colorful cover seemed different. It could have been because there were so many people at Wal-Mart that i didn’t want to spend the next half hour in line or my loathing to write off another possible source for books. Whatever it was I walked over to the book and read the back. I ended up half-hazardly shoving it into my cart and hustling over to a 20 items or less register.
Over the next day I engaged in a love affair with this book. The Island by Victoria Hislop began so well that i couldn’t put it down, and it’s basic premise of being a family saga amidst a backdrop war and small town gossip was alluring. But, what started off promising soon turned into a mix of a telanovela and Antonement. I soon forgot what the basic premise of the story was, at the beginning i thought it was about the journey into the past to move forward into the future. By the end, the emotionally exhausted women who narrate the story collide. Alexis, the post-college age great-granddaughter, who began her search to find an answer to whether she is in a good relationship with her current boyfriend weakly resolves her arc with a note and begins to mother her own mother. Sofia, Alexis’ mother and product of the mainplot in the story, is redeemed from her own immaturity-but, the audience was never fully aware of her agony so her character is saved from only a small conflict. Maria is already dead at the end and we never fully are given closure about what becomes of her after Sofia’s act of childishness.
Even with all these weak literary cliche’s the story is one that I am glad that I spent time reading. Hislop’s description of Greece and knowledge of Spinalonga was fascinating, and the reader becomes wrapped up in the mythology of leperousy of the physical and leperousy of the spiritual. Where some of the characters lack depth the main characters more than make up for it in their inner monologue as they handle seemingly insurmountable situations. The book is advertised as a “beach book with heart” and, while i would hesitate to praise it too much I would have to, even with my own doubts, agree that the book is just that. I would recommend it to someone who wants a leisure read that is character driven, but for someone looking for the next big thing I would say that this book is not that. But, i will be watching Victoria Hislop in the future and am looking forward to her next book “The Return.”
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