I came across the book “The island” by chance. Before reading this book, my biggest impression of the island described in the novel was the island of Monte Cristo where the Count of Monte Cristo buried the unparalleled wealth. Therefore, the book “The island” suddenly aroused my curiosity to see whether the island was rich in resources and people lived in harmony or there was no grass growing there. The main character staged a desert island survival by accident?
Located just north of the coast of Crete in the Greek Sea of Love, The island by British writer Victoria Hyslop is like any other island in Greece, but it is different because it has a certain mission. It is called Spinaronga.
A place that looks like a prison to the rest of the world, but to many people on the island, is a place of peace. The island served as a quarantine area for lepers in Athens during World War II from 1903 to 1957.
The story begins with a girl named Alexis, who travels alone from England to Spinaronga. This beautiful young girl, because she is always at a disadvantage in love, gradually loses herself, and finally does not know whether to submit to such unequal love, so she gets married with her boyfriend and feels confused.
She hopes her mother Sophia can offer some good advice, because her mother has handled the relationship very well. She married her father at the age of 20 and has been doted on by his father all her life. So she wanted to help herself by learning about her mother’s past.
Unfortunately, my mother, who loved them and the family, had remained silent about her origins, a secret that had become a barrier between her and her children. It seemed to Alexis that his mother Sophia had not only buried her roots, but had trampled down the soil.
This opportunity made Alexis more eager to open her mother’s heart, which had been closed for years. She wanted to know how much of the story, if only a little, was hidden behind that door. After thinking, or to his mother, I hope to go to the place where my mother grew up.
In the daughter’s eager, mother Sophia finally let go. Whether those years were good or dirty, she decided to let her daughter see them. Sophia sent a letter to her daughter, sending her to the village of Braka on Trique Island to find a woman named Fotini who would tell her all about the old days.
So Alexis took the letter, which was also a passport to his mother’s past, all the way to Braca, where the fog that had been hanging over Spinaronga for so many years was being blown away by her arrival.
The impregnable safe containing his mother’s past was about to be poured out when Alexis met Photini, who was still beautiful and gentle into her thirties.
“The story of Spinaronga begins at the very beginning, but there is no real beginning.” Fotini said to Alexis, “Because your mother’s story is your grandmother’s story, your great-grandmother’s story, and your great-aunt’s story.
Their lives were intertwined, which is what we Greeks mean when we talk about fate. The so-called destiny is mainly determined by our ancestors, not by the stars. When we talk about ancient history, we often talk about fate, but we don’t mean something uncontrollable.
Of course events can suddenly change the course of our lives, but what really determines what happens to us is the behavior of those around us and those who have lived before us.”
Alexis’ great-grandmother, Yin Liani, was a teacher in the village of Braka. She loves her family and every child in her school. Even if she sees any child fall down accidentally, she always rushes to help him up at the first time. In such an environment, the chances of contracting the virus are much higher than normal. So unfortunately, Elaine knew she had leprosy.
At that time, the fear of leprosy was no less than that of the Black Death. People did everything they could to hide their symptoms, because as soon as a doctor diagnosed leprosy, they were immediately sent away by the government. After a search, Elaine and Dimitri, another nine-year-old boy at the school, were sent to Spinalongue, an island known as the “land of the living dead”.
Sometimes, you feel that God is very fair, because the disease is not according to your social status, the amount of wealth to judge whether to be particularly gracious to you; But I also feel that God is really unfair, they clearly did not commit a crime, but was sentenced for no reason, and then abandoned by the society.
With Elaine gone, the once rock-solid Petkis family home began to crumble. The eldest, Anna, was twelve, and the second, Maria, only eleven.
Anna was always in a changeable mood. Her mother’s departure made her even more temperamental and capricious. The second daughter, Maria, is a quiet, introverted and kind child. Her mother’s leaving makes her sad, but she is still strong to help her father support the family in turmoil.
She took with her the soul of her husband, Georges, a fisherman who also earned extra money hauling goods to Spinaronga. It also gives me a chance to see my wife from time to time and listen to her talk about life in the other world.
But once Elaine contracted leprosy, the skin-to-skin lovers became completely untouchable lovers. They say that the furthest distance in the world is between life and death, but for them, it is me standing in front of you, and you and I can not embrace; It’s a husband, standing on the other side of the river, watching his wife wither away, but he can’t do anything about it.
Without her, he would wither. This feeling beat his soul again and again, so that more than once he had better die together thought. But life is crouching low in a wooden rowboat, and for a fisherman like Giorgis, that’s destiny. He can’t resist it.
In the eyes of the world, Spinaronga is a land of the living dead. It should be dirty, barren, run-down, the air is full of rot, and most of the people are deformed and bent, waiting quietly for death all day long.
But it wasn’t, because they had the same mark of being kissed by the devil, and so these lepers came together, and this little island, they formed a little society.
The island also has its own rules and order. The people here have the right to vote, and they vote for an island owner who can coordinate with the government.
You can’t imagine there are shops, streets, Italianate villas and gardens, hospitals, libraries and cinemas. They also have their own newspaper, the Spinaronga Star, with weekly movie previews, pharmacy hours, lost and found notices, even wedding notices and obituaries.
The children are still in school, even though many of them may not live past the age of 21, but Elaine continues to teach when she arrives. Oh, and the undead built reservoirs and invented electricity.
Perhaps because they knew their time was short, they shared a common goal to make their lives as better as they could.
Spinalongue is also a wonderful home for many people. Dimitri, the child sent with Elaine, was a case in point. In the past, he had been the eldest son, and the burden of life had fallen on him early in a poor, fertile peasant family.
But when he arrived at Spinarongar, he felt that God had opened the gates of Eden to him, with his own room, plenty of food to feed him, school and friends, and the love of his “mother” Elaine.
Infected with leprosy, they were the “unclean,” ostracized and humbled like ants. But on Spinaronga, they live their lives so easily that they need no reason to cry.
These “unclean” people have been cast out of the world, which can be said to be unlucky, but also very lucky.
When the Nazis set their sights on Crete, villages were destroyed, the sick and the old burned alive in their beds, men were shot in pools of blood after being forced to hand over their weapons, and the wreckage of war was everywhere. The island of Spinaronga, just a strait away, was not affected at all, because leprosy was regarded as more frightening than war.
