In theory I should have loved this novel ; the most turbulent era of Greek history told through the eyes of a child but unfortunately I just couldn’t absorb myself into the book as much as I wished I could.
In a way you could say that The Daughter is the anti Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. It takes place in the same time frame (the Italian/German occupation of Greece) but Matesis leaves out all the whimsy and piles on the grotesque reality. Here we see how deceitful people can be during war-time.
Even peacetime as well. When Greece is ‘liberated’ the main protagonist’s mother is brought in the town square and ridiculed because she slept with an Italian soldier in order to have food for her two children(as the husband is missing in action). Eventually they are driven out of the village and have to beg in order to earn a living.
But none of that bothered me.
What I didn’t like was the narrative tone of the main protagonist. It was too slangy and there was over use of certain words in the same sentence. Eventually the book switches form first person to the third and this is much better.
By the end of the book the woman who is narrating the story becomes an actor and life becomes easier.
Was this an unsatisfactory review? well I felt the same way about the book.
The Bobsphere 