Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915–2011)

A pleasant remembered account of the first half of Patrick Leigh Fermer’s 1933 trip on foot from Holland to Istanbul when he was 18. We meet people of all sorts and hear their political positions and rationalizations. The author, either then or many years later when he wrote the book, had a large vocabulary and at least some of his words are likely to interest you by themselves. Words I noted included fane, imberb, eyot, barbican and paynim. I know some German, but I learned that a Katzenjammer is a hangover; I’d only known the word from the early 20th century cartoon. There are some entertainingly florid descriptions of architecture, especially in Prague:

“Borne up in its flight by a row of cusped and trefoiled half-arches, each of them carried a steep procession of pinnacles and every moulding was a ledge for snow...among the rooks and the bruise-colored and quick-silver clouds.”

There are some entertaining adventures with assorted characters, especially in the streets of Vienna. It is a lost world, and none of these places are the same as they were. The trip is also from a lost time in the author’s life and we are reminded of what we were willing or able to do when we were 18.

The author (DSO, OBE) was a British war hero and famous for other travel books. He was involved in the kidnapping of German General Kreipe on Crete, later recounted in William Stanley Moss’ “Ill Met by Moonlight”. There is a nice Folio society edition of that book with pictures of PML-F.

As an aside, the author recounts his proclivity to recite poetry backward by word. As in “Whose woods these are I think I know” becomes “Esohw sdoow eseht era I kniht I wonk”. I find this fascinating and think it may replace op-talk, at least for me. [Note added later: opit dopoes nopot ropeplopace opop topalk.]

The second half of PML-F’s trip was published separately, and, apparently, there is a third volume, too. I may read them.… (mer)