A Theatre for Dreamers

Such a luminous beautiful book. The writing sparkles like the sea and the reader is blinded by the sun on the white buildings. When I was reading it, I was perfectly ready to believe that it was a true account of Erica's time on Hydra, so real were the characters, so vibrant their personalities. I wanted to leave immediately and go there.

Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen drift in and out of this account of a young woman's experiences on the Greek island where a colony of writers and artists hold court. Real people mingle seamlessly with the fictional. The bitching of Australian writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift is portrayed with brutal honesty, while the casual bedhopping of the younger crowd goes on in the background.

This novel highlights the burgeoning women's rights movement of the early 60s. On Hydra, and elsewhere, the women subsume their own creative instincts in order to facilitate those of the men. Marianne is the best at this and seems to want nothing more than to nourish first her unfaithful husband, Axel, then Leonard. For Charmian, though, it is a different story. Frustrated both sexually and creatively she struggles to stay within the confines of her marriage and her supposed duties. She urges Erica, a budding writer, not to be simply some man's muse and helpmeet, but to get on and find her own voice.

Beauty and tragedy walk hand in hand on Hydra and over the years the island and its inhabitants change and leave, some becoming victims of the earlier freedoms.

When I finished this book I went right back to the beginning and started to read it again. I shall certainly look out for Polly Samson's books in future.