What I Read -- The Cyprus Collection

For no particular reason other than adventure, S and I ventured to Cyprus over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.  Neither of us knew much about it.  However, the day after we had bought our plane tickets, we were at a used bookstore down in Florida with K and came across Cyprus: The Sweet Land, by Petroclos Stavrou. This one was more of a picture book, but opened with a rather helpful introduction about the lengthy history of Cyprus, which of necessity includes a who's who of conquering powers through the centuries: Mycenaens, Achaens, French (of a sort), Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Italians, Turks, and British, as well as the requisite period under the Byzantine empire and periodic raids by the Arab powers. The island's location in the eastern Mediterranean, at the crossroads of many a culture, has its curses, I suppose.

S picked up a couple of books for me at the library before we left for our trip.  As reading vintage travel books is my current favorite activity, he managed to find one called Cyprus Then and Now, by Gordon Home.  It was published in 1960, just as Cyprus gained its independence from Great Britain.  Though the book made passing reference to the cultural distance between the Cypriots of Greek descent and those of Turkish descent, the hostile Turkish takeover of a third of the island was still a decade and a half in the future at the time of publication.  That action, though, caused the UN to send in troops to maintain the "Green Zone" -- even to this day -- which separates the Greek and Turkish portions of the island.  Turkey is the only nation that recognizes Turkish Cyprus as a country in its own right, and the Turkish aggression and refusal to relent has led to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, being the last remaining divided capital city in Europe.  We didn't cross to the Turkish side, though it is relatively easy for tourists to do, but walking the Green Zone is a strange enough experience all on its own.

But about the book: the first slightly-more-than-half provides an extensive if somewhat selective history of the island, with the last several chapters being close-ups on a few of the tourist areas.  I skipped a few of those chapters which related to areas now in Turkish Cyprus, since we weren't going there, but poked through everything that was in the southern part of the island.  Always fun. 

His comments and descriptions were observant, often biting, and quite amusing for me as a reader. Here are a few of my favorites:

In describing the "takeover" of Cyprus by the French, under Guy de Lusignan, from the British, under Richard the Lionheart:
"At this juncture, Guy de Lusignan, who had lost his kingdom of Jerusalem, comes into the picture.  ... Contemporary opinion was severe on the handsome Guy, to some extent, no doubt, because of the loss of his kingdom.  In spite of these criticisms on his character it appears that he was possessed of courage if lacking in ability."

On the Cypriot attempt to repel the Egyptian invasion in 1426:
"Difficulties suggesting hurry and bad organization began at once.  Trumpets had been forgotten, with resultant difficulty in conveying orders, and there was a great shortage of wine that led to a mutinous uproar and rioting around the tower where the king was lodged and the wine stored."  Really, who can be bothered with the Egyptians under such circumstances?

On the capital city of Nicosia:
"Approximately in the centre of the Plain of Messaoria stands Nicosia, the capital, girt with its massive circle of fortifications about 1,500 yards in diameter and 2-2/3 miles in circumference.  The little city fills this space closely with a compact network of streets that have a tendency to lead nowhere in particular and subtly to bring the stranger out towards the ramparts when he is endeavoring to reach the centre. ... Altogether twelve breaches [of the city wall] have been [intentionally] made in recent times, each provided with a broad earthen embankment to carry the road across the ditch, that averages about 350 feet in width.  Some of these openings being quite unnecessary, the recklessness that authorized them was deplorable, for the Renaissance character that Nicosia bore externally until comparatively recent years has been sadly weakened."

Finally, there was the stabby fiction: A Sudden Death in Cyprus, by Michael Grant.  I don't consider myself to be a frequent reader of what is commonly referred to as "genre fiction," but (1) I am enjoying more murder mysteries lately, and (2) Cyprus is a small place and there aren't many books about it.  So when this one puts it right there in the title, how could I not? And I have to give credit where it's due: Mr. Grant does have a way of noting the details of a place and making sure that they end up in the prose.  A better writer would make it less contrived and provide some more natural scene-setting, but I had to forgive that in favor of pure observation.  It was fun to have noticed this or that myself as we were touring, then a day or two later come across that same thing in the book.  The protagonist, such as he is, is an almost-reformed ex-con who managed to escape punishment for the worst of his thieving, and now is living under an assumed name in Paphos.  When he witnesses a murder in broad daylight on the beach, he gets blackmailed into helping get to the bottom of it.  Incredibly improbably shenanigans ensue.