Book Review on The Island

The book,which was written by Victoria Hislop, was published in 2005.Many famous and popular book,such as The Da Vinci Code, The Kite Runner,Harry Potter were also published at this time.But The Island was exceed other works and won several awards including Newcomer of the Year at the 2007, and the book was also nominated for the Book of the Year award at the same event out of its impressing and heart-warming story.

Victoria Hislop read English at Oxford, and worked in publishing, PR and as a journalist before becoming a novelist. She is married with two children. The Island was her first novel,which held the number one slot in the Sunday Times paperback charts for eight consecutive weeks and has sold over two million copies worldwide. Victoria was the Newcomer of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007 and won the Richard & Judy Summer Read competition.

The Island is a historical novel. It has set on the island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, and on the village of Plaka which lies within swimming distance across it, The Island tells the story of Alexis Fielding, a 25-year-old on the cusp of a life-changing decision. Alexis knows little or nothing about her family's past and has always resented her mother for refusing to discuss it. She knows only that her mother, Sofia, grew up in Plaka, a small Cretan village, before moving to London. Making her first visit to Crete to see the village where her mother was born, Alexis discovers that the village of Plaka faces the small, now deserted island of Spinalonga, which, she is shocked and surprised to learn was Greece's leper colony for much of the 20th century. It is here that Alexis meets an old friend of her mother's, Fotini, who is prepared to tell her for the first time the whole tragic story of her family. What Fotini tells her is shocking and tragic, it is the story which Sofia has spent her life concealing: the story of Eleni, her grandmother, and of a family torn apart by tragedy, war and passion. Eleni has two children, called Maria and Anna with her husband Georgio. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island and with the horror and pity of the leper colony which was once there, and learns too that the secrets of the past have the power to change the future.

From the very start,this story which impressed me most was its particular background.A leper colony,which was consider “the place of the living dead”;Several hundreds of leper,who were considered “not clean”.There is a paragraph related to the Spilonga——the leper colony leaves a great impression on me:

As the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh,he is a leprous man,he is unclean and the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean.And the leper in whom the plague is,his clothes shall be rent and his head bares and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip and shall cry “Unclean,Unclean.”

From the above description we can feel people’s fear and disgust toward those leper.In that case,live became extremely difficult,not to mention a good life. However,it is in this abandoned place,a group of abandoned people live optimistically and bravely,they resisted their fate,proved their existence with their ordinary but grand behavior.At last,advanced democracy,hospital and commerce were born on this little island,far beyond everyone’s expectation.This courage and struggle in the hopeless situation visibly move everyone.

Secondly,the contrast between the Spinalonga and Plaka and its people brings me to another thought——in Spinalonga,people are unhealthy and deserted,it seems that those person have noting to do but wait for death.But the truth is,they fought for a happy life as well as their own rights,they transformed their living environment,and lived even better then most citizens who sent them there at the beginning.On the contrary,Anna,who seemed to own everything ——a good appearance,a favorable living environment,a devoted husband,a big house and countless beautiful clothes,but she was shot by her husband due to her unchastity and lust.So what is the true happiness?Is it depend on how much you have and how much you get?Certainly no.The true happiness lies in the desire and chase to the happiness.

Thirdly,there’s another characteristic in this novel——although there’s a lot of sadly plot,it also gives its readers a kind of positive impression.Maria,whose life was full of the blow.When she was still a little girl,she witnessed her mother was sent to the leper colony,and since then she never saw her mom for the second time.Being poor,she had to do a lot of housework and take care of her old father and wayward and lazy sister.After she had prepared everything well and was ready to marry someone,fate played a joke on her again——she was infected with the leprosy.And her fiance gave her up immediately and had affairs with her sister.After experiencing so many things,she still kept the way she is——innocent,kind and diligent,and these good quality won her a romantic love in the end.

Of course,there’s also exit some weakness in the novel,such as its character.Although there’s many people in this story,but almost everyone’s personality is simplex.To be more specific,those kind people will only do the right thing while every bad thing was done by the bad person.But the truth is,human being is a complex species,each of us has our unique characteristic,and we keep changeable.A lot of the time we will change our attitude according to different things.No one can keep same from the very start till the end.So the single personality of this novel makes it seems not so real and vivid.

The Island