Review of 'The Island' by Victoria Hislop.
I am reviewing the paperback format of the novel. It contains 496 pages, ISBN 978-0755309511, was first published 10/04/2006 and the genre classification is Modern Fiction. RRP £7.99
The Island is the first novel from Victoria Hislop.
The Plot
Alexis ... Read review
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her ... more
mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village. But when Alexis visits Crete, she discovers how intimately...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: in stock
Advantages: Well drawn charcters and an interesting plot Disadvantages: none in my opinion!
... I am reviewing the paperback format of the novel. It contains 496 pages, ISBN 978-0755309511, was first published 10/04/2006 and the genre classification is Modern Fiction. RRP £7.99 The Island is the first novel from Victoria Hislop.
==The Plot==
Alexis Fielding is a modern twenty five year old woman. She has a degree in archeology and a consuming interest in the past, a trait she shares with her father, Marcus. ... ...plans a holiday to Greece, the main purpose of the holiday is to decide whether she wants to move in with with her boyfriend, Ed. Ed is a go getter and a head boy type of man, Alexis is unsure whether she really does want to live with him. She decides that she will visit Crete during the trip in order to see the village where her mother, Sophia grew up. Alexis tries to press her mother for information about her family, eventually, Sophia gives Alexis ... more
Review of 'The Island' by Victoria Hislop.
I am reviewing the paperback format of the novel. It contains 496 pages, ISBN 978-0755309511, was first published 10/04/2006 and the genre classification is Modern Fiction. RRP £7.99 The Island is the first novel from Victoria Hislop.
The Plot
Alexis Fielding is a modern twenty five year old woman. She has a degree in archeology and a consuming interest in the past, a trait she shares with her father, Marcus. Alexis mother, Sophia is Cretan by birth but moved to England as a young woman. Sophia has always been reticent about her early years and has told Alexis and her brother Nick very little about their maternal heritage.
Alexis plans a holiday to Greece, the main purpose of the holiday is to decide whether she wants to move in with with her boyfriend, Ed. Ed is a go getter and a head boy type of man, Alexis is unsure whether she really does want to live with him. She decides that she will visit Crete during the trip in order to see the village where her mother, Sophia grew up. Alexis tries to press her mother for information about her family, eventually, Sophia gives Alexis a letter for an old friend called Fotini who still lives in the Cretan village, Plaka. Sophia rather mysteriously tells Alexis that Fotini will explain certain things to her.
Alexis arrives in Plaka on a hot and sultry afternoon. She finds that the village is fairly remote, a small village situated on the coast and directly opposite an island. Alexis finds the cafe bar that is run by Fotini and her family, where she is given a very warm welcome by her Mother's old friend. She inquires about the island located just across the bay and is astounded to find that used to be used as a Leper colony and was in fact Greece's main leper colony from 1903 to 1957.
People suffering from leprosy would be removed from their homes and families and forced to live on the island until they died. The island was called Spinalonga and it was a completely self ruled and almost self sufficient community. Doctors would visit to tend the sick in the purpose built hospital, the island had shops, a school, church and the residents lead a full life once they accepted that Spinalonga was now their last ever home.
Alexis finds a boatman to take her to the now deserted island and spends a day among the now derelict buildings, taking in the atmosphere and peace of the place. On her return, Fotini begins to tell Alexis of her family's history. As the story unfolds, Alexis is stunned to discover that she is intimately connected with the tiny island of Spinalonga. Her own family was rent apart by the horror of the leprosy disease when her great grandmother, a local teacher named Eleni was struck with the disease. Eleni was torn from her husband and two daughters and banished to Spinalonga.
Alexis' great grandfather was a boatman who had been employed to ferry lepers, doctors and other visitors to the island and when his wife was sent to live on the leper colony, he was luckier than most as he was able to snatch a few precious minutes with his wife. Lepers who tried to get off the island ran the risk of being shot.
The plot moves with an easy flow and covers in great detail, leprosy, the various treatments that were tried, and the effects that the illness and then World War 2, had on Alexis' family. She comes to realise that her mother has harboured shame and resentment for the stigma that leprosy carried in her youth.
I will not reveal anymore of the storyline or the eventual outcome for fear of spoiling the book for others, but I will stress that this haunting novel has enough twists and turns and technical detail to keep you enthralled.
The Author
Victoria Hislop was born on 8th June 1959 in Bromley, Kent. She studied at St Hilda's College, Oxford and after university, Victoria's first job was in book publishing. From there she moved into advertising and public relations. When she had children, she became as a freelance journalist, she wrote on education and parenting for the Daily Telegraph, general features for women's magazines and travel writing for The Sunday Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday.
Victoria Hislop's first novel 'The Island' has been an international bestseller. It was selected for the Richard and Judy Summer Read competition and won Victoria the "Newcomer of the Year" Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Victoria Hislop currently lives in a 500 year old house in the beautiful village of Sissinghurst, Kent. She is married to Private Eye and television satirist Ian Hislop, they have two children. More about Victoria Hislop can be found on her website, which was also my source for the personal information about the author. www.victoriahislop.com/index.html
Availability, publisher and cost
Published by Hodder Headline 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH www.hodderheadline.com
Jacket price of The Island is the RRP of £7.99, however the book can be obtained from www.amazon.co.uk for £5.11 new or 1p used.
Conclusion
I was given this book in 2007 by my aunt, who like myself is a veritable bookworm. We both read an eclectic selection of books and often pass our books on to each other. When she gave me The Island, she warned me that it was addictive reading. How right she was! For a first novel, Ms Hislop has achieved nothing short of a masterpiece. The novel covers family secrets and drama, passion, war, the conditions and treatment of the residents of Spinalonga Leper colony. The plot is unusual and fast moving and the characters are superbly drawn. The storyline has all the elements that a good novel should contain, a real page turner but in a gentle fashion, no violence or disturbing behaviour, but a thought provoking, emotionally charged plot. The author must have conducted an immense amount of research into leprosy in order to write such a hauntingly lifelike account of life in a leper colony. As I said, I was given this novel in 2007, I read and enjoyed it and have never really forgotten the novel. A month or two ago, I was waiting for my other half at the opticians. The receptionist was chatting away telling me about her recent holiday. It turned out that she had been to Crete and had visited Spinalonga. This incident reminded me that I wanted to re-read 'The Island' which I did. I have to say that I enjoyed the book just as much the second time around. I would heartily recommend this novel to others, it is a remarkable book and the actual story line is haunting and memorable, in my opinion because it is fiction based on factual events.
Advantages: A gripping and fascinating read Disadvantages: Slightly weak beginning, but perserve past chapter 2!
I love reading, but in the last few months I've found it hard to find the time or the energy to read anything other than a newspaper or magazine. Then whilst reading the "Metro" on the way to work last month I spotted a review on this book by debut novelist Victoria Hislop. I registered that it was about Spinalonga, a now uninhabited island off the coast of northern Crete, where from 1903 to 1957 Greek lepers were banished with no hope of ever returning ... ...a lasting impression on me. The guide who took us around the island had this amazing talent for taking you back to a very difficult time and tragic place and told us several true stories. Most of the stories were sad ones, but they all gave me the sense of the courage and optimism that most of these people had. The author of this novel has a very similar gift of inspiring empathy and a vivid 'mind's eye' in her readers. The story starts with a young ...
SandyJoe 30.05.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop
Advantages: fascinating story, good characters Disadvantages: loads of descriptions
The young English woman Alexis plans a trip to Greece with her fiancé which will also include Crete, she asks her mother whether she'd mind her paying a visit to the village where she's from.
Her mother Sofia is from Crete, but strangely and incomprehensibly, she's always been reticent about her past, an old photo of a Greek couple on her night table is the only reminder of her Greek past. To Alexis' surprise her mother doesn't evade her as usual ... ...about her family. This is the frame of the novel, Alexis finds Fotini in the village of Plaka in the east of Crete, what the old woman tells is the novel proper.
I ordered the book because some years ago my husband and I spent a week on Crete and on a day out visited Agios Nikolaos, the town near Plaka, from where we could see the outline of the small island Spinalonga. I learnt from my guidebook that lepers were sent there up to the year 1957, ...
MALU 17.08.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop
Advantages: Easy read, fascinating location Disadvantages: unauthentic feel to natives, structure of book
...read. This time, Victoria Hislop, the wife of Ian of Private Eye and "Have I Got News For You" fame, authors this book. I believe this is her debut book and has none of the satirical leanings of her husband. If that were what you are expecting then you would be very disappointed. She is a journalist in her own right, after all, so any comment on her husband is really completely unnecessary. But I thought I would point it out as it is an unusual surname ... ...Anyway lets move onto the book itself. It is a sort of saga being a kind of family history of a Greek family from a small village in Crete spread over the last century. I like researching my own family history so that puts me onside straight away even if other peoples' families are not always so interesting as this one. It begins, however, with Alexis in present day London, about to decide on major changes to her life. She is drawn to her mother's ...
imogen49 27.10.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop
Advantages: Easy to read, inteesting story with lovely setting Disadvantages: Not a lot of action if you want that in the book - for me none
The Island The version I am reviewing is a paperback published by Headline Book Publishing with 373 pages.This novel is the debut novel of Victoria Hislop, wife of Ian Hislop the editor of Private Eye. Prior to her novel writing she was a travel journalist and both this book and her next novel, 'The Return' are based in foreign lands, Crete and Spain respectively. The Island is an international bestseller not sure if this was helped by he fact that ... ...their show. It also won the "Newcomer of the Year" Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007. Since this time it has been translated into more than a dozen languages. I was given this book by my daughter as we are going to Crete in the next couple of weeks and I do enjoy books based in places where I have been or I am going. When I read the blurb on the back I wasn't sure as it mentions it is a story around the leper colony on the island of Spinlonga ...
catsholiday 14.07.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop
Advantages: Clearly written. Nice progression. Disadvantages: Some tragedy but it all might end in something good, is that naive?
At the time I went to spend my Christmas gift book tokens "The Island" was top of the paperback best sellers and that was why I bought it. The bookseller tried to put me off it, he said it was by that Hislop woman who he thought was the wife of some obnoxious T.V. critic. In fact it's by Victoria Hislop who writes travel features for the Sunday Telegraph, parenting and education for the Daily Telegraph and general features for Woman and Home. I don't ... ...thought I might have got the wrong thing; the Observer calls it a "beach book" with a heart. I don't hang around beaches in the summer reading nice books at all so I thought this might not work. The writing style is nice and easy to read. It was difficult to put down. When you realise the action is taking you to Greece's leper colony off Crete you might think there could be no adventure, romance or interest. The action takes you through the most ...
parker-munn 22.09.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop
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Advantages: good start and good end with good writing style Disadvantages: too much war in the middle and it drags on
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her school-friends, her mother screamed that she never wanted to hear the place mentioned again.
While in Granada, Sonia gets talking to the elderly owner of a bar, El Barril, a place she had been drawn to because she felt it looked familiar. Inside on the walls are vintage posters advertising bullfights and flamenco. The bar owner explains that toreador and the flamenco dancer were the son and daughter of the family that used to own the bar. Sonia is intrigued and a few weeks after she returns to England the opportunity to go back to Granada presents itself and she seizes it. There she meets up with Miguel, the bar owner, again and he tells her the story of the Ramirez family and what happened to them during the Spanish Civil War.
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Advantages: Easy, non-challenging read Disadvantages: Predictable, could have had more depth and still been readable
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On the brink of her own life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fortini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...
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