Arrested Song by Irena Karafilly

 

"I don't know about luck... Sometimes I believe there is such a thing, other times, I'm not sure." She shot Calliope an appraising glance, then smiled obliquely. "I can tell you one thing," she added. "I don't need to look into your cup to know that yours in not an ordinary destiny, my child."

"I believe in education as others believe in the Virgin's powers. It's the only thing that will take us out of the Middle Ages".

Arrested Song by Irena Karafilly is a brilliant historical novel, set in the XXc, during the most turbulent era of modern Greek history.

Blurb:

Calliope Adham - young, strong-willed, and recently widowed - is a schoolmistress in the village of Molyvos when Hitler's army invades Greece in 1941. Well-read and linguistically gifted, she is recruited by the Germans to act as their liaison officer. It is the beginning of a personal and national saga that will last for several decades.

Calliope's wartime duties bring her into close contact with Lieutenant Lorenz Umbreit, the Wehrmacht commander. The schoolmistress is an active member of the Greek Resistance, yet her friendship with the German blossoms against all odds, in a fishing village seething with dread and suspicion.

Amid privation and death, the villagers' hostility finally erupts, but the bond between Calliope and Umbreit survives, taking unforeseeable turns as Greece is ravaged by civil war and oppressed by military dictatorship. It is against this turbulent background that Calliope emerges as a champion for girls' and women's rights.

Arrested Song is a haunting, sumptuous novel, weaving the private and historic into a vivid tapestry of Greek island life. Spanning over three decades, it chronicles the story of an extraordinary woman and her lifelong struggle against social and political tyranny.

Calliope is a free spirit. She is an intellectual who loves books and has a talent for languages. Thanks to her upbringing and access to books, Calliope is different from the women of her village who have no access to education and are expected to marry early and serve the men in their family.

"She was generally considered the most beautiful woman in the village, but, even as a girl, she had never been kept under lock and key". Her father who used to be the headmaster of the local school, mostly educated her at home. As a child, her "nose was always stuck in a book".

As the old fortune teller Zenovia tells Calliope, "Strong-willed women are often thought to be difficult... You were always different from other girls".

When the Nazi occupy Lesbos, Calliope is recruited to be a liaison officer, thanks to her knowledge of the German language. She is allowed to continue teaching a couple of hours a day in the village school.

She also joins the Resistance, keeping the news even from her mother. "She had always thought of herself as a coward - a coward and a wimp... The very idea of someone like her being asked to help the underground had made her laugh when the doctor had broached the subject".

Dr Dhaniel who has known Calliope since her childhood doesn't hesitate, "We need someone like you. Someone strong and decisive and quick-witted. Someone trustworthy".

Working with Lieutenant Umbreit, she comes to realise that he is quite exceptional. Calliope admires his manners, air of competence and quiet authority, "but their budding friendship was contingent upon her own ability to maintain separate mental chambers for her endlessly clashing musings".

There is a mutual attraction between Calliope and Lorenz. "...if human decency seemed surprising in a Wehrmacht officer, Calliope's own feelings were far more perplexing." She begins to admire Umbreit, not just for his intelligence and competence, but also his interest in everything.

"A soldier who might have been a philosopher, a novelist, an explorer. She had long since noted his virtues..."

Calliope is impuslive, and often speaks her mind when she should have been more careful. Umbreit is a charming man, intelligent and even delicate, yet he is the enemy. There is the affinity between them, "stronger than that between many husbands and wives". 

Will their special bond survive all the obstacles, mainly the opposite sides in the war?

When the war is over, the country is soon plunged into the vicious civil war, and later the dicatorship regime. Calliope is stunned to see that her compatriots can be as immoral and horrible to each other as the Nazis. 

Never able to stay still, Calliope has to find a new purpose in life. "Calliope was especially troubled by Molyvos girls' arrested education. Most men didn't want their daughters leaving the village for school". She organises informal study lessons for girls in the library she establishes in the village. Calliope becomes an educator and advocate for battered women.

From a daydreamer with love of books, Calliope becomes a staunch advocate for women, and a talented translator of literary works. 

We watch Calliope's ambitions of encouraging women to get an education and become independent flourish against the resentment of the locals and social struggles of the society in general.

In one of her interviews, Calliope talks about the compromise. "I don't have to tell you it's usually women who have to do all the compromising. In fact, I don't think compromise is the right word. Self-abnegation is probably more accurate." Almost sixty years later, these words ring true, as always. Women are still fighting for their rights against the ruthless patriarchy, and the new age of misogyny.

Arrested Song touched me deeply. 

It felt like a glimpse into my own family history. There's been a doomed love story between the Nazi officer and the young woman who worked as an interpreter in my family, and reading Arrested Song made me think of what it must have been for her. To be torn between the hatred against the occupants and love for the person who you were supposed to hate. Unlike Calliope and Lorenz, the star-crossed lovers of my story parted in 1944 never to see each other again, or know if the other survived or perished. Both were in their early twenties. 

There was a lot of Greek history in this novel that I was unfamiliar with. It makes you think of the current war, and how we as humans never learn from our own mistakes. The references to paidomazoma (forced evacuation of children) are especially poignant. 

This is an emotional and often moving account of the human suffering and tragedy under the occupation, civil war and dictatorship. Themes of love and loss, loyalty and betrayal, despair and strength work well together, set against the picturesque backdrop of the village life. 

There is a whole plethora of supporting characters, memorable and notable, like the eccentric fortune teller Zeovia who lives with her cats, Calliope's mother Mirto who wanted to join the Resistance, the village doctor Dhaniel, kind and thoughtful... 

There are also some minor characters who touch your heart, like Hektor, the village fool who helped Zenovia with the house chores, or the deaf-mute artist Zoe, who loves to sketch the scenes of the village life.

The characters are skilfully portrayed, and are absolutely credible.

Arrested Song is historical fiction at its best. Beautifully constructed, it blends the fictional story with the real historical facts sensitively and compassionately. Irena Karafilly conveys a real sense of the historical upheaval of the Greek history of the XXc. 

Potential triggers: murder, domestic abuse, torture.

About the Author:

Irena Karafilly is an award-winning writer and poet and the author of several acclaimed books as well as numerous stories, poems and articles published in both literary and mainstream magazines and newspapers including the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

She was born in Russia, educated in Canada and currently divides her time between Montreal and Athens.