Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki

Greek Fiction

Original title – Τα Ψάθινα Καπέλα [Ta psathina kapela] (1946)

Translator – Karen Van Dyk

Source – Personal copy

I’ve been a fan of the books that Penguin has been reissuing or doing new translations of great European writers. I haven’t reviewed many books from Greece, so it is a treat to review another Margarita, born in 1919; she studied law and grew up in Athens; one wonders if this book came from her own summers as the place is the countryside near Athens. I picked this up last year, and when I saw it reviewed by Sherds tube, I moved it up the TBR. Im love coming of age works I also like books set in rural areas. Palces where the world is maybe slower and different to the cities. I also love tales of siblings. This is the tale of three sisters throughout three summers.

I lie down on the couch on my stomach. She comes over and puts her hand on my forehead. I wish she would smother me in her breasts, like when I was a baby and she was still nursing me. If she knows I’m not sick why does she ask? If she really wanted to know what was wrong I might tell her. She is about to ask – her voice gets warmer, sweeter – but she draws back. There’s always a certain trepidation between us. We can’t give away secrets that we don’t have.

‘The sun must have got to you,’ she concludes.

Too bad, Mother… And I would have told you so many things about the Land of the Houyhnhms and about Mavroukos’s grave and about the things I can see from the top of the walnut tree.

‘Rodia,’ she calls. ‘A lemonade for Katerina?

the sisters and there mother!

A few years ago this had been everywhere on blogs. It captures those inter-war summers of the twenties. You feel there is maybe some of her own life. There are three sisters. Maria is the oldest and, like many older siblings, has a bold nature; thus, as she came first, she will always try to be first at everything, if that makes sense. Well, it does in my head. Infanta is maybe a typical middle sibling unknown, quite one of those people there, but we don’t fully know them. Then there is the younger sister, Katerina. She is like many a young child let to shine by others her garden reflects her full of flowers, I loved the way we get the sisters they are typical but leap of the page as characters. SHe also ca[tures the greek countryside, It drew me back to the Gerald Durrell books also set aroundthis time the countryside is drawn well. The sister her tales of the Aunt who was raped, and the other is tales of their Polish grandmother, especially. Katerina is drawn to her family tales. The girls move into womanhood during the three summers as they talk about growing love and boys. Al this as well as the simmering feeling of their mother’s lack of having a life at times adds to a book that has growing up but also in the kids the mother maybe can see her past and as the girls fall in love and marriages and children are on the horizon will it be different for the sisters. Three Summers is a tale of those inter-war years when, in some ways, the world was brighter than ever, and chance and change were just on the horizon for them.

I remember one day when Maria, Infanta, and I were looking out the window, we saw a car pull up in front of the clinic and a young couple get out – the girl didn’t look any older than Maria.

‘It won’t hurt at all, you’ll see,’ the guy was telling the girl, and she was smiling, though her forehead was covered in sweat. A few hours later the same car came and picked them up. He helped her in. Her eyes had a deep sadness about them, and her hand seemed to want to touch her belly, to check it, but she kept pulling it away, ashamed. ‘Must be an abortion, Maria said, letting out such a screech you’d have thought they’d taken her insides out

Nicely observed how the sisters live in the world

I loved this book. It is full of the feeling of warm summers where the world is carefree, but still, shit happens. Family members have been raped things happened to our parents and grandparents and the world around them. In the books, the grece she writes about is gone. The summers they spent are gone . It also has a classic love triangle with the youngest daughter and her love for a sea captain and an astronomer, David Simmers. I hope to take this if I go on holiday to Greece soon and spend a warm summer evening drifting away in the three summers in this book drift over me as we see the three girls become women. Sat on a chair in the sun I hope I will do it one day and then review it again. Have you read this book? Do you have any other books from Greece I should read?

Winston score – A three summers, three sisters, and a world long gone as we see them fall in and out of love and grow.