Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 February 2007 08:39:18
The blocks of 20 minutes I spend on the train have become an oasis. They have become my time, when I can plug into the i-pod and read something which is not a text book. This week I have been relaxing with The Island by Victoria Hislop.
It is a strange story, primarily set around an island in Crete which was used as a leper colony during the first half of the twentieth century. It is a story which is a mix of the haunting, the disturbing, and the beautiful woven together in a story which captures the imagination whilst touching the soul. It dispels many myths and misunderstandings about leprosy within the plot and so I found myself realising by the end my view of what a leper was had changed. Also reading it helped me to understand that the past is a complex thing and so sometimes it is not discussed as much to protect the listener as it is because the person doesn't want to revisit it in their own mind.