A House in CorfuA House in Corfu
a Family's Sojourn in Greece
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Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st American ed, Available .Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st American ed, Available . Offered in 0 more formatsThe author describes how her English family built a home called Robinia in Corfu by the Aegean Sea, detailing the legends of the island, the family cook and her husband, and the local inhabitants.
The author of Sylvia and Ted describes how her English family built a home called Rovinia in Corfu by the Aegean Sea, detailing the legends of the island, the family cook and her husband, the local inhabitants, and the rich beauty and culture of a special Greek island. 17,500 first printing.
In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there. Rovinia, as the house is called, is on the west coast of Corfu, above the bay and beach where - legend has it - Nausicaa rescued the shipwrecked Odysseus. There the Ionian Sea shades from emerald to deep ultramarine much like each day blends into the next, as it has for uncountable ages.
Women did the heavy lifting, the architect was local, but Tennant's mother and late father transformed the house into art. The grace of proportion and design charms anyone who steps out onto the terrace, or looks through the wide doorway into the room where her father sat at his desk; it's particularly apparent in Tennant's mother's room with three windows looking out on bay and forested hill, where "the sea provides an ever-changing wallpaper; otherwise there is only the whiteness of light."
Rovinia's pleasures are many: breakfast figs picked behind the house, "a slab of local bread spread with honey so rich and gold the bees must have swarmed from Mount Olympus." There are boat trips to Mathraki and down the coast to little-known beaches. And flowers: clouds of poppies on the Plain of Ropa, blue and scarlet pimpernel "peering up like jeweled eyes." Why should summer ever end?
Along with these beauties, Tennant offers us the delights and frustrations of daily adventures on a Greek island - salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls - with a love that can be kindled only by the place that truly feels like home. Full of color and life, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the family's arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive and sea.
The story of an unspoiled island and an English family making a home by the Aegean Sea. In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there. This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set above the bay in Corfu where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the couple who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove that followed the roof-raising-Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband, Thodoros-and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay. Tennant offers us the delights of quotidian adventures-salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls-all hilariously presented. That the house is still lived in and loved, with new generations coming to understand the delights of Corfu, is a tribute to the people and a special landscape which is distinctly Greek. Full of color and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the Tennants' arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive, and sea.
The story of an unspoiled island and an English family making a home by the Aegean Sea.
In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there.
This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set above the bay in Corfu where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the couple who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove that followed the roof-raising-Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband, Thodoros-and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay.
Tennant offers us the delights of quotidian adventures-salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls-all hilariously presented. That the house is still lived in and loved, with new generations coming to understand the delights of Corfu, is a tribute to the people and a special landscape which is distinctly Greek. Full of color and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the Tennants' arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive, and sea.
The author of Sylvia and Ted describes how her English family built a home called Rovinia in Corfu by the Aegean Sea, detailing the legends of the island, the family cook and her husband, the local inhabitants, and the rich beauty and culture of a special Greek island. 17,500 first printing.
In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there. Rovinia, as the house is called, is on the west coast of Corfu, above the bay and beach where - legend has it - Nausicaa rescued the shipwrecked Odysseus. There the Ionian Sea shades from emerald to deep ultramarine much like each day blends into the next, as it has for uncountable ages.
Women did the heavy lifting, the architect was local, but Tennant's mother and late father transformed the house into art. The grace of proportion and design charms anyone who steps out onto the terrace, or looks through the wide doorway into the room where her father sat at his desk; it's particularly apparent in Tennant's mother's room with three windows looking out on bay and forested hill, where "the sea provides an ever-changing wallpaper; otherwise there is only the whiteness of light."
Rovinia's pleasures are many: breakfast figs picked behind the house, "a slab of local bread spread with honey so rich and gold the bees must have swarmed from Mount Olympus." There are boat trips to Mathraki and down the coast to little-known beaches. And flowers: clouds of poppies on the Plain of Ropa, blue and scarlet pimpernel "peering up like jeweled eyes." Why should summer ever end?
Along with these beauties, Tennant offers us the delights and frustrations of daily adventures on a Greek island - salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls - with a love that can be kindled only by the place that truly feels like home. Full of color and life, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the family's arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive and sea.
The story of an unspoiled island and an English family making a home by the Aegean Sea. In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there. This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set above the bay in Corfu where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the couple who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove that followed the roof-raising-Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband, Thodoros-and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay. Tennant offers us the delights of quotidian adventures-salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls-all hilariously presented. That the house is still lived in and loved, with new generations coming to understand the delights of Corfu, is a tribute to the people and a special landscape which is distinctly Greek. Full of color and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the Tennants' arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive, and sea.
The story of an unspoiled island and an English family making a home by the Aegean Sea.
In the early 1960s Emma Tennant's parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay and decided to build a house there.
This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set above the bay in Corfu where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked and found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the couple who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove that followed the roof-raising-Maria, a miraculous cook and the presiding spirit of the house, and her husband, Thodoros-and of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay.
Tennant offers us the delights of quotidian adventures-salt water in the well, roads to nowhere, collapsing walls-all hilariously presented. That the house is still lived in and loved, with new generations coming to understand the delights of Corfu, is a tribute to the people and a special landscape which is distinctly Greek. Full of color and contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the Tennants' arrival, and celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world: the world of vine, olive, and sea.
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- New York : Henry Holt, 2002.
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