A Time Of Gifts

This past summer Patrick Leigh Fermor died at the age of 96, an event that not too distantly followed the reprinting of two of his most well regarded books by New York Review Books (an imprint of the periodical whose goal is to reprint lesser known important titles). His passing has rekindled significant interest, especially in the States, of a writer who remained obscure outside the non-fiction genre of travel writing despite the fact he was considered by many as the greatest living travel writer before his death. A Time Of Gifts appears on almost every most respectable top 10 list of travel books and like most contemporary readers I had never heard of it but swept up in the copious coverage of Fermor’s passing, such as Christopher Hitchen’s eulogy, http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/06/16/christopher-hitchens-farewell-to-patrick-leigh-fermor-the-last-ideal-hero/ , I was intrigued by the fantastic proposition this book represented. Fermor, in 1933 at the age of 18, walked from Holland to, as he continued to call it, Constantinople resourcing only his wits, the kindness of strangers and a less than meager purse. A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water are lauded as radiant narratives of a now disappeared Europe and inimitable pieces of English prose and from what I can tell thus far walk the walk. Attached are two excerpts. Pages 96 - 99 present a fantastic deconstruction of pre-Baroque ornament in Germany; pages 150 – 155 provide a fascinating glimpse into the (hitherto?) unrecognized peculiarities of the Danube School of painting. Fermor’s language is infectiously rapt.