Under the Volcano

Under the Volcano

Wild Abandon

• 'You can package the wild and sell it but it may still turn around and bite.’  Jennifer Barclay.
  

There's a sense of stoicism in the voice of narrator Jennifer Barclay as she rambles through the deserted towns and villages of the Greek Islands of the Docadenese.  There is also something of Robert Graves' introspection and isolation in Barclay's resolve to convey everyday life on Tilos, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Rhodes, Kos and Nisyros to understand why many former thriving villages have become deserted. As Graves was trusted to report from Majorca through his poetry and sagely wrote about Claudian Iberic exile in his 'I,Claudius' novels Barclay, is entrusted with her patch in Greece to give a sense of an idyllic world far beyond the yawning gape of a developer's back hoe. However as cracks and fissures appear in the ancient landscape of her travels a question remains: What lies beneath the surface of such an Idyll? 
Through Barclays' spare, impassive prose the sights are revealed; ferries are taken at night; goats, cats, fishermen stare and bonds formed by speaking the local language ease the reader in; after over ten years of living and moving on the Island chain, Barclay has watched events evolve.  Is there an element of the survivalist in her, getting lost in darkness up remote mountains? This is the question which is hinted at in Barclay's clear love of the natural world. The writing does have an old-fashioned quality and sometimes the quiet  humour evokes the idea  that the author is tending a vast garden pulled along by her dog. 

 

The ease at which Barclay is able to convey the pace of life and make friends, aided by her trusty dog Lisa, as well as her friendly encounters and observations of locals who tend bees in urns and her ability to interpret the regret of those who have had to make their lives in Australia and the USA is tempered by the fact that these Islands have been fought over for centuries; many islanders in the past century were forced to leave due to economic hardship and more sinister reasons. The Italians and 'Il Duce’ have had their way, leaving crumbling opera houses to rot as have had the Turks and the Templar Knights leaving imposing edifications proclaiming authority over the Aegean Sea. These abandonments pose more questions than answers, though, leave ghosts in the mind as well. The Nazis left their cruel stamp in Rhodes during the Second World War when the occupying military forced out the Jews. Conversely the influx of immigrants and displaced Syrians are viewed  through the eyes of an observer and not native. However there is a sense of everyone making things work in the community and an intrinsic spirit of living together on the connected islands of the Docadenese. 

The love for the land rings clear and we identify with each ‘interesting arrangement of stones’ and urn which turn up. However with each house and ruin Barclay passes, pulled along by Lisa, we are further reminded that many of the Islands fortunes have been made and lost at nature's whim as the region is part of a dangerous Aegean microplate. On western Nisyros for example, the spas which have made the town are also a source of dark humour to the locals. Like the inhabitants of modern Napoli, who live in the shadow of Vesuvius, the volcano could erupt at any time. Steam rises from small cracks in the surface.  Barclay relates the local myth that ‘the God Poseidon crushed a giant under a rock here, and his hot breath surges out from time to time.'

Wild Abandon is a well-researched read and Barclay a formidable travelling companion. The idea of that dormant trapped giant plays on the mind as Barclay walks in the footsteps of Greek history and we marvel at a place which has somehow resisted major development. We are intrigued to know how she fares and what next tale she will spin  in her late night ferry rides and rambles cross country in the shadow of the Volcano.