The prose rips, sparkles, and/or meanders, but his sentences pop off the page. Can’t remember when I more enjoyed words strung together on a page. It almost wouldn’t matter what he is writing about, so stunning are his word choices. He travels with his girlfriend Joan in the Mani, the central southern peninsula of the Peloponnese. In the 1940’s, when all of this transpires, the inhabitants live much as they did for centuries, and Fermor gets right into it: the mores, the history, the wars, and the peaces. His knowledge is breathtaking. Who knew of all those tribes in one tiny portion of tiny Greece. The Maniotes claim to fame is resisting the Turkish occupation. They climbed up in their towers and hid out. At other times they fight it out (with each other), tower to tower. When Leigh Fermor visits, they are at peace: eating feta cheese, drinking retsina, and always in sight of the sea. Leigh Fermor is now in his 90’s and lives in the Mani. [1/08]