Captain Corelli's Mandolin

To quote Renée Zellweger in Jerry Maguire, this book had me at "Hello."  The first chapter is so funny, I almost want to include the whole thing here, but I won't.  I will include the first paragraph, however, as a small  taste of what a great writer Louis de Bernières really is.

Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse.  He had attended a surprisingly easy calving, lanced one abscess, extracted a molar, dosed one lady of easy virtue with Salvarsan, performed an unpleasant but spectacularly fruitful enema, and had produced a miracle by a feat of medical prestidigitation.  

Isn't that wonderful?

The last book I read, Birdsong, was about World War I.  It was sad.  I have moved forward a war.  Captain Corelli's Mandolin is set on the Greece island of Cephallonia during World War II.  It, too, was sad, but so funny too.  I cried as I rode my bike (again), but chapters were so amusing I had to read them out loud to Kent.  The characters are wonderfully well developed and the story enlightening (I knew nothing about Greece during the war).

I turned down corners of several pages, moving and delightful passages about children, love, and death.  Here are a couple of quotes, in brief.

Children see more than we do.

Did you know that childhood is the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected?

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.  And when it subsides you have to make a decision.  You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.  Because this is what love is.  Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body.  No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths.  That is just being "in love," which any fool can do.  Love itself is what is left over when being in love has been burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

When loved ones die, you have to live on their behalf.  See things as though with their eyes.  Remember how they used to say things, and use those words oneself.  Be thankful that you can do things that they cannot, and also feel the sadness of it.

I think this is a great book.  I would love to read it as my choice for our book group, but I'm not sure I can.  There is a fair amount of bad language and graphic descriptions of wartime atrocities, plus talk of sex although no actual sex scenes, and I'm not sure it would be "appropriate" considering the book group started out as a Relief Society sponsored thing.  I did love it though.  I need to have someone else read it and tell me if I can select it.