The Cretan runner Hardcover – 2009

The translation (by Patrick Leigh Fermor) has a certain extra "zip" having been done by a contemporary classic of English literature. I would very much like to read the original now--I have a hunch it would be a very different book written by a humble Cretan mixing the regional dialect with elements of Katharevousa (the "high falutin'" language of the stuffed shirts) and who knows what else--P.L.F. didn't try to approximate this by blending Appalachian American with arch, stylized Old English parlance since it would be unintelligible.Of course, the story of the Cretan resistance is compelling: there was resistance to the Nazis in most countries, but rarely did the Germans seem to have destroyed more villages with greater zeal, nor shot more of the populace (lelt's ignore the death camps of course) than they did in Crete.That resistance sidelined energies that would have been better spent in Russia and elsewhere for the Nazis: To this day the Cretans (characteristically) boast they won the war for the allies by delaying the Nazi onslaught of Russia by 60 days (the time it took to "subjugate" Crete). This book shows that the Nazis really didn't subjugate much of the island at all: as the kidnapped General Kreipe noted to P.L.F.--the English seemed to be in greater command of the island than the Germans.Since much of my family was very much engaged in the Cretann resistance, I had special pleasure in reading this delightful book, a gift of an English friend (making it all the more spcial). Although I did order this lavish hardback version after reading the paperback: it's one you want to have on your shelf (you can loan out your paperback version). Judging by how many English editions there are of this classic, I suspect more English than Greeks have read this book. This doesn't surprise me: the Cretans treated the English far better than their subjects have in any of their real colonies!

I came across this book on a holiday in Crete. It looked like one of thousands of war stories. But it was not. It turned out to be one of the most absorbing books I ever read. The book is a completely true and accurate story about a Cretan dispatch runner in the British intelligence service seen from the Cretan side. As his translator and former superior intelligence officer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, put it:"...like a Rualla beduin, by sudden miracle of literacy, had given us the Arab version of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom!"By some terrible error the author and dispatch runner, Georgio Psychoundakis, was imprisoned as a deserter after the war. He spent 16 months in jail in spite of beeing honoured by the British with BEM. There, in jail, in desperation he wrote down everthing he could remember from his time in the British service.The reading of this very well written book has painted a most fascinating picture of Crete, its people and their resistance to the blood soaked german occupation. All seen through the eyes of the dispatch runner.Through this book he has given a face to all the anonymus and ordinary people of Crete who fought for their freedom of their country.The book can also be used as a most magnetic travelling guide covering the sentral Crete.In later years Georgio Psychoudakis translated the works of Homer to Cretan dialect. En impressive feat for a scholar. Not to speak of a shepherd with two or three years of occational education.He is now (2005) 85 yars and living in Xania, Crete.