Winds of Crete

by Doren

Here is a fresh, wholly personal, frank yet affectionate account of six years living on Crete, travelling all over the island, meeting all kinds of people and everywhere encountering the homeric island hospitality.

Genres: Greece

229 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Liz V.]

American ex-pat journalist, Doren, and Swedish art student, Inga, fall in love and, being 30ish, decide to "retire" to warmer climes as Inga's heart condition may not afford time for retirement later. With only $50 in Doren's pocket and Inga's small, monthly disability check, they choose Crete as the least expensive place. A one-year venture turns into six, during which they live in several villages and, when forced to be near medical facilities, on the fringes of a larger town.

A friend, whose British mother passed through Crete, steps ahead of the Nazis, had given me this book, which I eagerly started, interested in how the Cretans fared at some remove from WWII and the Greek Civil War. I only got a few chapters into the book, however, when I put it aside. The author's attitude irritated me. Doren writes well enough and met a large number of characters. Invariably, Doren and Inga were greeted graciously and offered hospitality even by the poorest of a very poor country. And, while Doren recognizes the generosity, there seems to be a feeling that their mere presence is good value. I did finish the book finally, enjoying the characters.

[Sam Schulman]

For Crete lovers and travelers thence - not bad, and I wish I had been able to get myself to read it before I visited, not 4 years after. A book written by a postwar type, an American too late for WWII and too square to be a beat, but who knocks around the world. He meets a Swedish woman + falls in love, but she is too ill to marry - so they take their small means to Crete in the mid-50s, where they stay until 1962 or so in poverty, supporting themselves on her small disability pension and his freelance writing. They spend the first year or so in Ayia Nikolias, the bourgeois and Victorian capital of Crete's easternmost province, then move to a seaside village between Rethmynon and Chaea, near the base of the Sudra peninsula - but what they really love is the White Mountains in the southwest and the Sphakiots who inhabit them.
Doren is a bit of a plodding, oversrious writer, but his responsiveness to the Cretans, to history, to nature and to his love, Inge, is attractive and moving. The great set piece of the journey down the great gorge through the White Mountains is fantastic, as is his mountain writing in general.
The first pages are heavier going, but it is unfortunate that the couple started their sojourn in the most boring, least Cretan part of Crete, and they fall in love with it over the time it takes to live the years the book describes. Greece itself was at the very end of its pre-modern period, and the life of poverty and muscle and animal-driven farming Doren saw in the early 60s has been completely repaced by the Crete I saw in 2008 just before the financial crisis, where every farmer had a new Toyota pickup and a pretty new tractor, courtesy of EU money, and Iraklion, the capital city, had the highest per capita income in Greece. The couple's poverty compared to other foreign residents put them right in the middle of village life wherever they were, in a way that is pleasant to envy -- at a distance. And their Crete wasn't defaced by huge, pointless, poundingly noisy wind turbines, that stamped the remotest parts of the island with a nasty reminder of human stupidity and greed for power.
David and Inge's budget didn't run to owning a car, so there was no way to see the origin of one of Crete's social oddities: it has the most accomodating drivers in Europe, who will move over to the far verge - in both directions - to allow an even slightly faster driver to pass. In other words, the opposite of Virginians.

[Sean Yates]

David Doren's wonderfully insightful depictions of six years in sixties Crete are mesmerising. People, food, landscape, culture and music are all recorded, as well as his and his wife Inga's highs and lows. He describes a place that is no longer there - I found some places and buildings on Google Maps, but most places are modernised beyond recognition. For the month I read this, I felt like I was living in Dubai now and Crete sixty years ago.

[Tammy]

Fascinating glimpse of a land and people written almost 50 years ago yet retaining its captivating writing style and moment in time perspective.

[David]

Excellent account of a couple wanting to escape the rat race and find the simple life in Crete.

[Frank Harris]

Yes,was good read.it got better as I progressed, last few chapters something of a climax.as a travelogue, a insight into the lives and lifestyles of the cretens of 6oyrs ago.