colour, discovery, enchantment, inspiration
A lyrical commitment to his own odyssey, self-promised the first time the author sailed past Ithaca. He made it, a mere three or four decades and a war later. How could he not, a ‘blue and golden world’ would exercise a strong hold on the soul (mine,...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, moments
A blazingly limpid landscape on the island of Thera, plunging down to the sea, with flashes of passing birds and lizards over patterned stones and anchored plants. But there is a delicate order, too, imposed by tracery of asphodel and grape-hyacinth, purple mallow and...
discovery, enchantment, inspiration, memory, time
Golding took thirty years to complete his own odyssey from Troy to Ithaka, with war and other events intervening between his first attempt, in which he passed a few miles shy of Ithaka, and the second successful venture in the early 1950s. Here he captures the...
happiness, moments, sharing
It is unbelievable how good bread and cheese can taste, washed down with some form of liquid amber, when you are on a terrace over a blue chasm, or sitting on a rock or a bench during a hike or a bike ride. I love such moments captured and committed to memory so we...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, memory, moments
Golding sails from island to island on a land and sea alternating odyssey, and at some point, overwhelmed by enchantment, his memory of moments merge into the map of his travels so he can’t quite recall what happened on which island. But the memories are still...
beauty, discovery, happiness, moments, sharing
Golding describes a moment, a scene, on the island of Corfu, experienced during his own odyssey in search of Ithaka. I like that he wants us to share that moment, as elsewhere he sends a note to the future.  And if you were to describe a moment that you wish others...
beauty, enchantment, life, sharing
I’m always touched by people connecting to us from the past, throwing their light into an unknown future in addressing, in a human and friendly way, people not even born. George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte do this by addressing readers directly, and you, reading...
beauty, colour, discovery, moments
After about three decades and three months, Golding finally realized his war-postponed dream of visiting Ithaca. With such a level of high expectation and anticipation, you might expect the reality of the place to disappoint. Anything but, it transported him and was...
beauty, discovery, freedom, moments
Golding took several decades to realize his dream of visiting Ithaca, and a few months to make his own odyssean journey there by way of Troy. Many of his descriptions of this and other Greek islands are intoxicating in their brightness and warmth, particularly as one...
enchantment, life, moments
An intricate description of the effect an ancient temple can work on the spirit – a falling away of complication and anxiety and a spilling over of clarity and hope. I had such a feeling when a handful of us were allowed to roam untrammelled through ruins and...
