Books about Sfakia, Crete

The text of the presentation Theodore Paradellis gave at the book launch on November 4th, 2008 in Athens:

It is a real honor for me to present Professor Peter Trudgill’s book on Sfakia and I would like to thank John Chapple and Mary Sifianou for giving me the opportunity to do so, and of course all of you who were kind enough to be here with us this evening.

Let me first give you the two main reasons for which I am happy to present this lovely book. First I knew Peter Trudgill from his books and articles on sociolinguistics (1976 Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 1998 Language Myths et al) for no decent anthropologist can do without linguistics. So now I have the opportunity to meet the man himself.

But there is a second, more important reason and that is the fact that in the 70’s I spent more than a year in the plateau of Askyfou doing my fieldwork and in the years that followed my research I used to go there quite often. During my research I used to literally escape from time to time from Askyfou (from these lovely insane highlanders) and «descend» (as we all used to say) to Chora Sfakion where I could relax a bit drinking with Andreas or the so called “three brothers” or just look at a girl but without ?ffending anyone or putting my life at risk. Of course I have no intention of talking about myself (all this is already described in Peter’s book anyway), but what I would like to stress from the outset is that by reading the book I immediately found myself in Sfakia as I have experienced it and as I have lived it long ago, feeling a nostalgia that made my bones ache (and that’s not funny).

If I had to choose only one word to characterize this book and of course the author, I would definitely choose the word “sensitivity”. Sensitivity in perceiving the situations and events he is dealing with, sensitivity with regard to other people’s views, ideas or emotions, (and I mean others as opposed to us), sensitivity in understanding other people’s difficulties or tragedies, and sensitivity in the way he writes about it all.

Because in writing about a different culture (and in this case one writes mainly for people from his own culture) the important thing is not just what you choose to say but most importantly how you say it, in this case how you write about it, because the problem one faces here is one of cultural translation. And here I think Peter has managed to convey to us (non-Sfakians) what was or is going on there using situations or metaphors from other northern European collective experiences (or rather his own).

The Sfakia presented here is not a tourist’s Sfakia, it is not a one-dimensional description of a paradisiac place. It is a multivocal description of Sfakia where nature, history, legends, people, characters, language, gender relations, aggressive (if not insane, as the author puts it) hospitality, even animals, all come together to form a lively tapestry.

What he does in this readable, enjoyable and understandable book is what we call in our trade a “thick description”, that is a kind of description where everything merges together, like life itself, where nature, landscape, people, history, everyday routine etc are there simultaneously whatever the object of description.

Or, on the other side, a certain feature of the culture comes out prominently but indirectly through just a conversation. Just take a look at the Prologue, entitled “How long for?” to see what I mean. Through a very short conversation the whole attitude of the Sfakian, Cretan or Greek (for that matter) towards the state and the bureaucracy comes out splendidly.

The interesting thing about the narrative style is that he presents people, events, ideas etc as he and his wife Jean encounter them, in the process of finding out about them, which puts the reader in their place. And as textual strategy it also introduces an element of suspense.

Peter does not exoticize the Sfakians. He tries and succeeds in interpreting the difference that he is experiencing by trying to find parallels or comparisons in his own culture, or I should say cultures, often in the form of his own memories (something which I suspect helps him in turn to understand aspects of his own culture). There is an element of reflexivity, that is, that helps the author to situate himself against the culture he is confronting and is fascinated by, but also helps the reader to situate the author and understand and appreciate his point of view (and his struggle to make sense of what he is experiencing. Just look, for example at Peter and Jean’s efforts to stand drinks for local people –Ch.18 ).

But on the other hand there is also a lot concerning the way the Sfakians themselves see foreigners and also Greeks from other parts of the land.

Of course the sociolinguist that he is accompanies his journey and the pages of the book but always to explain, comment and interpret. Even his little experiment (described in chapter 13, concerning directness and indirectness of speech, a chapter which is in itself a lesson in sociolinguistics) obeys the same goal: makes the reader understand the how and the why of the cultural behavior of these people.

This book among other things is a travel book in which the author condenses 25 years or more of his experience in Sfakia in a narrative that gives the impression of one unified time of one and the same journey, even if he mentions the changes brought up through these years as he focuses on people, relations, forms of sociality, and an ethos that I believe haven’t much or yet changed.

And I find this unified experience of a single journey that nonetheless consists of several journeys very interesting indeed because the written record of Peter ?rudgill’s experience in the region of Sfakia, repeats in a way the condensed historical experience of the Sfakians themselves. Let me for a minute explain what I mean:

I read a review of the book where the reviewer says: «Ghosts of the past are brought back to life with fluency and verve...stories are told of the Village during the collective memories of its locals...». I don’t disagree at all with that; but I think Peter Trudgill is telling us something more. On the one hand, in almost every chapter he gives us a short account of the historical events (Venetian occupation, Ottoman occupation, Battle of Crete, 1941) that he himself gathers from books and people’s testimonies (whether they are Sfakians or New Zealanders coming back as pilgrims). ?ut on the other hand Peter is presenting history from the «native’s point of view», helping us understand these people. As he himself puts it on page 96: «Barbayannis was able to describe this in some detail. The distress in his face as he told us about it, was obvious. This was not, for him, something which happened long ago and far away». Or again on page 61: «All around them were buildings and monuments that recalled the Venetian, Turkish and German occupation; but it was also true that the associated historical events, which to us seemed to have happened long ago, to them actually felt very recent, vivid and real». I couldn’t agree more. People have memories of things not immediately experienced or lived. Children are brought up with these stories, rather than with fairy tales, although we must agree that here we are dealing here with an idealized form of history. All these historical narratives are part and parcel of these people’s identity, as well as part of their self-presentation. It is in this sense that, in order to go back to my previous point, Peter’s narrative gives the impression of a unified time of one and the same journey...

But Peter is not naïve. He knows that this place that he has loved so much and still loves is a Paradise that (thank God) “has its problems”. Little by little we are introduced to an earthly paradise with its paroxysms, its wonderful and terrible stories, its moments of shame and guilty secrets and difficulties. And I think we should call this honesty.

I also found fascinating the way he ends most of the chapters, where by just a short touching phrase he gives you the emotional impact that the things he narrates had had on him and his wife Jean, a kind of discreet emotional summation of the whole chapter.

So, as you can understand I was really impressed by how 230 pages could make me relive with such intensity a very precious time of my life. There is no question the man was there and he got it right.

Prof. Thodoros Paradellis
Dept. of Social Anthropology and History
University of the Aegean
Mytilini

text used by kind permission

The reviewer, the Sfakian historian Paris Kelaidis, initially introduces to the readers the writer who is a frequent visitor to Sfakia from far away Australia and whose ancestry is from Sfakia. He then introduces the book, as follows:

For the first time we heard in the song of Daskalogiannis about the destruction of our district where it says:

"Chora Sfakion, where has it gone
with its many boats
with its one hundred churches
and with its rich houses?"

These one hundred churches of the song the writer tried to locate, to photograph and to write about. Using GPS technology, he also aimed to record their location and to chart them. He researched also in libraries and archival records to determine what evidence existed of their history.

He was not able to find all the one hundred churches of the song. Possibly it was an exaggeration by the songwriter, who wanted to emphasize the richness of the place and the large number of churches that existed there once. But the writer located quite a few and in the book he provides information about those that he found. And as he writes in the introduction section of the book, he is offering the book to the people of Chora Sfakion who have a similar interest with him in the history of our district.

It is a beautiful book, a real treasure for every Sfakian home. Congratulations to our beloved fellow Sfakian who does not forget his roots.

Paris St. Kelaidis

review used by kind permission