54th out of 766 books
—
1,211 voters
A Time of Gifts (Trilogy #1)
In 1933 Patrick Leigh Fermor was eighteen. Expelled from school for a flirtation with a local girl, he headed to London to set up as a writer, only to find that dream harder to realize than expected. Then he had the idea of leaving his troubles behind; he would “change scenery; abandon London and England and set out across Europe like a tramp . . . travel on foot, sleep in...more
Paperback, 321 pages
Published
October 3rd 2005
by NYRB Classics
(first published 1977)
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Jan 24, 2012
Adam Floridia
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
discovered-thanks-to-goodreads,
being-a-teen
This book will forever hold a special place in my heart because it is the first one my son, Jameson Michael Floridia (Jem for short), read:

Actually, it was more like this:

Hopefully, some of Fermor's aesthetically magnificent, dazzling images will dance like sugar plums in his little head. Maybe one day he will be a Wandering Scholar...
Hopefully, Konrad's words will reside latent in his subconscious: "'You see, dear young, how boldness is always prospering?'" (205).
Hopefully (but not likely), I...more
Actually, it was more like this:
Hopefully, some of Fermor's aesthetically magnificent, dazzling images will dance like sugar plums in his little head. Maybe one day he will be a Wandering Scholar...
Hopefully, Konrad's words will reside latent in his subconscious: "'You see, dear young, how boldness is always prospering?'" (205).
Hopefully (but not likely), I...more
I’ll have whatever this guy is having. Yeah, the one making the embarrassing noises and eating ambrosia without a care in the world. This ridiculous guy right here. Fermor is kind of my hero. He represents something I've always envied. You know those people who can make a thing, an occasion out of anything, out of doing errands if they must? It’s not just an Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (da da da dah dah da dah da!) thing, it’s a way of not letting a surface presentation of boring be t...more
infuriating. the long stretches of five starness (and there are many of 'em) contend with as many instances of passages ground to dust by severe overwriting; as great a command as fermor has over the language, the lush, too often, drops into the masturbatory. and that breezy british omniscience? it just grows tiresome. it's those who are mad and sloppy and damaged who truly excite. i.e. christopher hitchens's (certainly a descendent of fermor) dry, reference-packed, know-everythingness is temper...more
Nov 15, 2012
Bettie
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
3Ms
Recommended to Bettie by:
Carey Combe
----------------------
Three opening quotes, this one is the title source:
For now the time of gifts is gone -
O boys that grow, O snows that melt,
O bathos that the years must fill -
Here is dull earth to build upon
Undercoated; we have reached
Twelfth Night or what you will...you will
Introductory Letter to Xan Fielding
Map
Opening:
THE LOW COUNTRIES
'A splendid afternoon to set out!', said one of the friends who was seeing me off, peering at the rain and rolling up the window.
Hadn't meant to start this...more
To enjoy A Time of Gifts you will only need to possess an interest (even a passing interest) in at least one of these three things: the English language, descriptions of land and city-scapes, and the history of European art and culture. Is that more than three things? Possibly. This is certainly the most erudite travel book I have ever read. It is composed of countless magnificent words. I understand this is the case with many books. But this one is a really vivid fabric, each word representing...more
Ah, these English travellers and their amazing prose--prose equal, fitted to their feats. Virginia Woolf on Hakluyt's Early Voyages:
These magnificent volumes are not often, perhaps, read through. Part of their charm consists in the fact that Hakluyt is not so much a book as a great bundle of commodities loosely tied together, an emporium, a lumber room strewn with ancient sacks, obsolete nautical instruments, huge bales of wool, and little bags of rubies and emeralds. One is for ever untying thi...more
Ma solo per un attimo Pareva così strano, adesso che mi stavo sistemando nel piccolo salone - provando, all'improvviso, un senso di desolazione, ma solo per un attimo -, partire dal centro di Londra! Nessuno scoglio a strapiompo, nessun rumore di ciottoli sul bagnasciuga di arnoldiana memoria. Potevo essere diretto a Richmond, o a Gravesend per una zuppa di gamberi e un fritto di pesce, invece che a Bisanzio. [p. 34]
Dicembre Un gong tintinnò e lo steward mi condusse di nuovo nel salone. Ero l'un...more
Dicembre Un gong tintinnò e lo steward mi condusse di nuovo nel salone. Ero l'un...more
Now I fully realize that I have no right to ‘review’ a book of which I’ve read only about forty miserable pages, plus its bloviating introduction. So if you’re a militant Fermor partisan and you’ve arrived here for the purpose of throwing fits and tantrums and tsk-tsking me for bad protocol, then save the exertion of your typing fingers. I’m unmoved by the natural law of book reviewing or its radical adherents. Now where’s my soapbox? This book is the opposite of the kind of books I enjoy. It’s...more
It took me a long time to comprehend history as a palimpsest. Fermor seems to have understood it viscerally, if not yet intellectually, as a teenager dropping out of school in order to walk from Ostend to Constantinople. He set out in December of 1933, though he didn't write up his experiences until the seventies. He did keep a travel diary (though he lost the first one, when he left his backpack at a youth hostel in Munich for a day, after having met a pair of schoolgirls who took him in) so th...more
At the tender age of eighteen, on the cusp of adulthood and having been expelled from his last school, young Patrick Leigh Fermor decided to go on a walkabout through the pre-war Mitteleuropa wonderland, all the way to the distant minarets of Constantinople. These are some of the people and things that he encountered along the way:
1. Goose-stepping Brownshirts and beer-swilling S.S. officers

“The song that kept time to their tread, “Volk, ans Gewehr!” ---often within earshot during the following...more
1. Goose-stepping Brownshirts and beer-swilling S.S. officers
“The song that kept time to their tread, “Volk, ans Gewehr!” ---often within earshot during the following...more
At 18, and freshly kicked out of school, Fermor decided to walk from Holland to Constantinople, bumming around central and eastern Europe, staying anywhere he could and striking up acquaintances with peasants noblemen and everyone in between. It's an almost weepily romantic notion of travel, and it's all compounded by the fact that he did it all in 1933, before WWII would violently wipe away virtually all of the kooky, old Europe. What makes this book so strong is that it doesn't fall into the b...more
Have you ever so adored a book that you feel that everyone in the world should have the authors name on their lips and you want to buy every copy so you can force everyone you know to sit down and read it right now? But that the same time this book is so special, so truly unique in your life and also the universe, that to read it is sort of like the time in the Wizard of Oz when it all goes from black-and-white to Technicolor and only truly worthy people deserve moments like that so you also wan...more
"All horsepower corrupts."
This from "The Walking Man," as good a sobriquet for Patrick Leigh Fermor as you'd want. A TIME OF GIFTS is the sweet story of an 18-year-old Englishman (boy?) who decided to walk to Constantinople. Yeah, yeah. There's that problem of the English Channel and all, but you can't take it so literally. He takes trains, no planes, and automobiles when necessary, but mostly he foots it, and, for a traveler, there's no better way to find local color.
What about his finger-waggi...more
This from "The Walking Man," as good a sobriquet for Patrick Leigh Fermor as you'd want. A TIME OF GIFTS is the sweet story of an 18-year-old Englishman (boy?) who decided to walk to Constantinople. Yeah, yeah. There's that problem of the English Channel and all, but you can't take it so literally. He takes trains, no planes, and automobiles when necessary, but mostly he foots it, and, for a traveler, there's no better way to find local color.
What about his finger-waggi...more
In November 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor was eighteen years old. His scholastic career having been disrupted by being expelled from school, he was studying privately in the hope of being admitted to Royal Military College Sandhurst when he realised that being a peacetime soldier held no attraction. So, in need of a change of scenery, Leigh Fermor decided to “abandon London and set out across Europe like a tramp”, or as he expressed it to himself, “like a pilgrim or a palmer, an errant scholar, a b...more
"Östlich von Wien, fängt der Orient an." -Metternich
.. East of Vienna, the Orient begins ..
Off the start-mark at a run, A Time Of Gifts begins as a youthful dash toward freedom and maybe even civilization itself, exiting deliriously from the stuffy attic-rooms of academia. From a gritty mooring by London Bridge, Fermor hitches a ride on a tramp steamer and arrives in the Hook Of Holland, eager to explore one continent right after the next in a headlong rush. Although this is an overland journey,...more
.. East of Vienna, the Orient begins ..
Off the start-mark at a run, A Time Of Gifts begins as a youthful dash toward freedom and maybe even civilization itself, exiting deliriously from the stuffy attic-rooms of academia. From a gritty mooring by London Bridge, Fermor hitches a ride on a tramp steamer and arrives in the Hook Of Holland, eager to explore one continent right after the next in a headlong rush. Although this is an overland journey,...more
This account of a journey on foot across central Europe, undertaken in the middle of winter by an 18-year-old 'posh kid' with no sensible plan and no objective except to walk to Constantinople [ie Istanbul], is surely one of the most glorious and accomplished pieces of descriptive writing ever published. The year is 1933, and the drum of Nazism is already sounding across much of the territory he covers. But for the most part, the Europe he sees is astonishingly rustic and seems almost medieval....more
The simple concept of this journey was to walk from the hook of Holland to Istanbul following the two main arteries of Europe: the Rhine and the Danube. The book was written from pre-war notebooks so some of the language is slightly unfamiliar at first. Once you get over your modern cynicism the gentle pace and detailed descriptions will pull you through the slowly changing landscape of Europe. You will feel the cold of blizzards through dense woodlands and then warm up to drink schnapps in a Ba...more
At the tender age of 18, Patrick Fermor left his native England to embark on an epic journey - to walk from the North-Eastern tip of Europe to it's end at the Straits of Bosphorus. The book under review here is the first of a proposed trilogy describing that trip (the second, Between the woods and the water is available - and no doubt will be reviewed here in due course - while the third, describing the end of his journey, was almost complete at the time of the author's death. Publication of the...more
I absolutely do not understand how this book has such a good rating here and on Amazon -- and my entire book club of 12 avid readers agrees, so it's not just me.
This seemed like such a great idea: a coming-of-age story, travel, Germany between the two World Wars. How much cooler could a book get? The author led a fascinating life, wrote a ton of books, and the books are well-rated. We thought this was a sure-fire winner.
Only two of 12 people finished it, one because she's the one who recommended...more
This seemed like such a great idea: a coming-of-age story, travel, Germany between the two World Wars. How much cooler could a book get? The author led a fascinating life, wrote a ton of books, and the books are well-rated. We thought this was a sure-fire winner.
Only two of 12 people finished it, one because she's the one who recommended...more
"Pleasure is spread through the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find."
The opening line of William Wordsworth's "Stray Pleasures" captures accurately Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time of Gifts". Fermor's story of his walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople is filled with tales of the stray gifts he found along the way. Fermor's story, one that was an absolute treat to come upon and read, was a gift to this reader.
Fermor was a child of what could be called the British colon...more
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find."
The opening line of William Wordsworth's "Stray Pleasures" captures accurately Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time of Gifts". Fermor's story of his walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople is filled with tales of the stray gifts he found along the way. Fermor's story, one that was an absolute treat to come upon and read, was a gift to this reader.
Fermor was a child of what could be called the British colon...more
A Time of Gifts is a travel book by travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. Published in 1977, it is actually based on travels in 1933-34. When the author was just 18 in 1933, he decided to walk from Rotterdam to Constantinople (now Istanbul), a journey of more than a thousand miles. This book, the first in what was intended to be a trilogy, covers his journey as far as Hungary. It is based partly on recollections, and partly on a notebook which he rediscovered many decades later in a castle somewhe...more
c1977. A lyrical read, indeed despite some very engineered sentences. But what a time this must have been. What struck me was that in the pre-war years, the words "English" and "student" when juxtaposed together was almost a passport for hospitality and, dare I say it, respect. How times have changed - I doubt that either of those 2 words, especially when put together, holds true in Europe any more. Such a pity! I do not think that those "innocent" times will ever come around again and certainly...more
A travelogue written in the late 30's by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Basically, he didn't fit into the traditional British school system so he decided to take some time off and travel to Constantinople, mostly by foot. I sent this piece to Jen because I could picture her in the situation somewhat. (He's just walked into a tavern somewhere in Germany.)
With freezing cheeks and hair caked with snow, I clumped into an entrancing haven of oak beams and carving and alcoves and changing floor levels. A jungl...more
With freezing cheeks and hair caked with snow, I clumped into an entrancing haven of oak beams and carving and alcoves and changing floor levels. A jungl...more
Patrick Fermor possesses in this text a conversational way with history that I openly envy. He can talk about the first Apostlic King of Christian Hungary as easily and normally as we might allude to so-and-so from the office. Plus , I am a sucker for any book where someone walks from one place to a distant other - in the is case, from Holland to the Danube; this book details the first half of a trek to Constantinople at the eve of World War II. He captures the all-encompassing hallucinatory int...more
Does this one need an introduction?
Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Title: A Time of Gifts / Between the Woods and the Water
Time: 1933-34
Destination: from Amsterdam to the Iron Gates
Length: 2 years
Type: walking
Rating: 10/10
A youthful old man
The story: PLF is only eighteen years old when he decides to take a walk through Europe – all the way from Amsterdam to Constantinople (Istanbul). He walks for one year, picks up languages, talks to locals, learns about history, and keeps a meticulous diary. And t...more
Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Title: A Time of Gifts / Between the Woods and the Water
Time: 1933-34
Destination: from Amsterdam to the Iron Gates
Length: 2 years
Type: walking
Rating: 10/10
A youthful old man
The story: PLF is only eighteen years old when he decides to take a walk through Europe – all the way from Amsterdam to Constantinople (Istanbul). He walks for one year, picks up languages, talks to locals, learns about history, and keeps a meticulous diary. And t...more
At the same time that Byron was travelling across Central Asia, 18-year old Patrick Leigh Fermor set out from the Hook of Holland and walked all the way to Constantinople. This book takes him to the middle Danube. The second volume in the series, “Between the Woods and the Water” didn’t appear until 1986. The final installment has never shown up. Fermor died just this past June at the ripe old age of 96.
And yes, this is the Fermor who, ten years later, parachuted into Crete, disguised himself a...more
And yes, this is the Fermor who, ten years later, parachuted into Crete, disguised himself a...more
Wonderful, spell-binding.
Just before Christmas 1933 the 18 year old Patrick Leigh Fermor, expelled from his school in England, decided to embark on a walk across Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople (already known in the Republic of Turkey by its Turkish name, Istanbul (and not the capital!). Basically, Leigh Fermor walked up the Rhine, which empties into the North Sea at Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Itinerary - Dordrecht, (missed Aachen not knowing it was Aix-la-Chapelle, where Cha...more
Just before Christmas 1933 the 18 year old Patrick Leigh Fermor, expelled from his school in England, decided to embark on a walk across Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople (already known in the Republic of Turkey by its Turkish name, Istanbul (and not the capital!). Basically, Leigh Fermor walked up the Rhine, which empties into the North Sea at Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Itinerary - Dordrecht, (missed Aachen not knowing it was Aix-la-Chapelle, where Cha...more
Jun 16, 2011
James
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
travel-adventure,
mitteleuropa
The London Telegraph commented of Patrick Leigh Fermor that: "His most celebrated book told the story of his year-long walk across Europe from Rotterdam to Istanbul in 1934, when he was 18 and the Continent was on the verge of cataclysmic change. His account of his adventures was projected as a trilogy, of which only the first two parts have so far been published, A Time of Gifts in 1977 and Between the Woods and the Water nine years later.
The journey was a cultural awakening for Leigh Fermor th...more
The journey was a cultural awakening for Leigh Fermor th...more
This travel book may be one of the most beautifully written books in the English language. Patrick Leigh Fermor's prose is stunning, it flows like a hypnotic river, it mesmerizes, it shines, sentence after sentence. But there's much more to this wonderful non-fiction book than just exquisite writing: by retelling the journey that he undertook as a very young British man, in the thirties, and which brought him to Holland, Germany, Austria, and the next door Eastern-European countries, P.L.F. brin...more
When the author set out at the age of 18, he had just been thrown out of an English boarding school for having a relationship with a townie. But he won’t conform to your idea of a high-school drop-out. He gets himself a passport, takes a boat to the Hoek van Holland, and then proceeds to walk from Holland to Constantinople. This first leg of his journey covers the first volume in the trilogy. I had decided to read it on the occasion of my own journey from Holland to deep in Germany. Whereas Patr...more
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| Travel Master Piece | 1 | 8 | Oct 01, 2012 01:31pm |
Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE was a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer".
At the age of 18, Leigh Fermor decided to walk the length of Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. He set off on 8 December 1933, after Hitler ha...more
More about Patrick Leigh Fermor...
At the age of 18, Leigh Fermor decided to walk the length of Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. He set off on 8 December 1933, after Hitler ha...more
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“I found my mind wandering at games; loved boxing and was good at it; and in summer, having chosen rowing instead of cricket, lay peacefully by the Stour, well upstream of the rhythmic creaking and the exhortation, reading Lily Christine and Gibbon and gossiping with kindred lotus-eaters under the willow-branches.”
—
8 people liked it
“All horsepower corrupts.”
—
4 people liked it
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Feb 01, 2012 07:08am
Feb 01, 2012 02:19pm