Broken Greek by Adrianne Kalfopoulou
Review of BROKEN GREEK ---- Whether you are heading off to Andros to the the Aegean Arts Circle Workshops or just dreaming of a trip to Greece, the Pokkoli Library Recommends "Broken Greek" an insightful, intelligent memoir on place and identity, by Adrianne Kalfopoulou.
Poet Adrianne Kalfopoulou takes a gap year between college and grad school to connect with her roots, staying with her grandparents in Athens. She is immediately immersed in the chaotic tangle of Greek life and the ordered labyrinth of the Greek language, which at first she speaks imperfectly, especially in moments of great stress, like when she is insulted by drivers who ram into the side of her car and they are clearly at fault. Later, when she finishes her studies, she returns to live and work in Athens and raises a daughter there. In this intelligent and insightful memoir, we maneuver familiar territory of expat memoirs set in Mediterranean countries: the nightmare bureaucracy, that multicursal maze with no exits, which must be dealt with at every breath you take, the terrible traffic, the misogynous, maniac drivers, and the fact that there is no word for 'efficiency' in the native language. But these are viewed from a fresher perspective, not the usual clear cut line of demarcation of " us" and "them. "She comes to see that there is a fragile order in the chaos, based on a mutual making way for each other, even in the face of what seem to be outrageous demands, an attitude so different from the American ideal in which society functions as long as everyone follows the rules and keeps within a tidy space. More than once she is accused of being uncivilized when clinging to a rigid concept of the rules, and the conflict between these two systems reaches boiling point. . Am I Greek or am I American? can I be both? There is a passionate humanism in this memoir. And you will also learn why Greeks drive the way they do.
Publisher: Plain View Press (October 1, 2006)
ASIN: B00JHS3PIA
Reviewed by L. Lappin
Poet Adrianne Kalfopoulou takes a gap year between college and grad school to connect with her roots, staying with her grandparents in Athens. She is immediately immersed in the chaotic tangle of Greek life and the ordered labyrinth of the Greek language, which at first she speaks imperfectly, especially in moments of great stress, like when she is insulted by drivers who ram into the side of her car and they are clearly at fault. Later, when she finishes her studies, she returns to live and work in Athens and raises a daughter there. In this intelligent and insightful memoir, we maneuver familiar territory of expat memoirs set in Mediterranean countries: the nightmare bureaucracy, that multicursal maze with no exits, which must be dealt with at every breath you take, the terrible traffic, the misogynous, maniac drivers, and the fact that there is no word for 'efficiency' in the native language. But these are viewed from a fresher perspective, not the usual clear cut line of demarcation of " us" and "them. "She comes to see that there is a fragile order in the chaos, based on a mutual making way for each other, even in the face of what seem to be outrageous demands, an attitude so different from the American ideal in which society functions as long as everyone follows the rules and keeps within a tidy space. More than once she is accused of being uncivilized when clinging to a rigid concept of the rules, and the conflict between these two systems reaches boiling point. . Am I Greek or am I American? can I be both? There is a passionate humanism in this memoir. And you will also learn why Greeks drive the way they do.
Publisher: Plain View Press (October 1, 2006)
ASIN: B00JHS3PIA
Reviewed by L. Lappin