![]() The book had everything I expected: fine prose, snippets of culture and history, a few youthful misdeeds here and there. At first I thought I was misinterpreting my own feelings. Well, to get straight to the point, even by the end of the introduction I found myself disappointed. ![]() The only book I can think of that holds comparable promise is Gerald Brenan’s South From Granada, which begins, similarly enough, with the young, bookish Brenan settling down in the south of Spain to read Spinoza. We have here all the makings of a literary adventure: an author sensitive enough to language and art to appreciate the finer points of culture, and impetuous enough to get into scraps and misadventures. The premise of this book could hardly be more promising: a naïve, bookish nineteen-year-old decides to walk from Holland all the way to Constantinople. When I began this book, I fully expected to join the universal chorus of praise. ![]()
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