Affair of the Heart

Dilys Powell was one hell of a woman, way ahead of her time in some aspects, it is not often you would find a woman travelling on her own in the 1940/50's, especially in a country that was very male oriented.  She handles herself well, she doesn't shy away from any experience...she doesn't get too fazed with how often she gets lost.  She started her love affair with Greece in the 1930's when she joined her husband on archaeology digs and it must have taken a huge amount of character to go back after his sudden death. 


I have to admit I found this book a little tough to get into, the first 50 pages are brief memoirs of early visits, the villagers get mentioned in a way that implies you should know them already, but when she goes back for her first proper visit after WWII things improve big time.  She travels a lot of the time by foot, meeting a lot of locals, her main purpose for being there is to find out how the Greeks are recovering from WWII and the civil war they had immediately afterwards.  One thing that stands out about the Greeks was how hospitable they were, always offering a free drink, food, lift or a roof to sleep under.  Another visit was to document one of the first instances of aquatic archaeology using a new fangled invention....the aqualung.  She shows just how independent she was by giving one of these a go without any training and nearly killing herself, this didn't put her off from trying again later.

There is one underpinning feeling the reader gets throughout these travels and that is grief, revisiting these places she spent so much time with her husband brings back a lot of memories.  When she visits his grave for the first time in a couple of decades you really can feel her pain in the words.

Yet another fine release from Eland Publishing, part memoir and part history book this was a fascinating read.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/02/23/affair-of-the-heart-by-dilys-powell/