Charmian Clift, Australian writer and journalist, committed suicide in Sydney in 1969. George Johnston, her husband, also a novelist and war reporter. A couple who, in the mid-fifties, left the comfort of their London home and decided, along with their two children, to go to a Greek island, which was fruitful literary speaking, as Clift wrote two autobiographies and two novels there. On her return to Australia in 1964, the couple separated, and Clift resolved to take her own life at the age of forty-five.
Here are the essential data to understand the context into which it is possible to delve into his memoirs, the first, Siren Songs, of a Clift for which Greece was an almost mythical place, far from the post-war environment. However, from the first moment, it would seem that the move only brings problems and discomfort – there is no running water, no electricity, and furniture can hardly be found – when it comes to adapting to the locals, in a poor and wild environment. But, of course, the contrast will be material for writing.
“We arrived at the island of Kálimnos in the Angellico, a small gray caique, surrounding Punta Cali with a sirocco that raged from the southwest, a triangle of black and patched sail flapping over our heads.” This is how it begins, and immediately the characters that respond to the clichés of what the traveler will expect to find in that remote and miserable place, but also beautiful and challenging, appear: old women in black, children in rags, self-absorbed fishermen.
In this way, the family will discover the benefits and cruelties of the place, accepting the nature of the island as well as the backwardness in which its population lives, after a BBC documentary inspired them to undertake such an adventure to live economically. The Greek archipelago in the middle of the 20th century could be the equivalent of the Aran Islands that John Synge visited around 1900 and that he turned into a precious travel book, capturing the soul of the place, the maritime work of the people and their superstitions and habits . Well, Clift is of the same breed of writer: highly observant, courageous, eager to expand his human horizon of expectations.
The year that the couple planned to stay there lasted ten, so Clift had time to delve into the funeral customs of Hydra, in the lives of sponge divers, in its different celebrations, especially the religious Week Holy, and above all in the capacity for suffering of the inhabitants. All of this can be seen in that book that was published in 1956 and in Los buscadores de loto (1959). Here, she is pregnant with her third child and her family moved to Hydra, an island closer to the mainland that was known for its bohemian atmosphere, painters and poets.
In this sense, in the prologue, the Australian writer Nadia Wheatley erases the clichés of legendary idealism that were congealing around the couple of writers and presents us with a Clift anguished by economic problems, in addition to an author of great daily discipline. The work will be a brilliant recreation, however, of nights shared in taverns and conversations with idle people, or the way in which, with a large dose of irony, they talk about the Hollywood actors who occupied the island one summer to shoot a movie. (The book’s original title was Peel Me a Lotus, a paraphrase of a phrase Mae West said.) A life, in short, of difficulties and stimuli, and also of illuminations: “Lying inert under the great and warm waves of light, I was glad of our decision to live under the sun. Living in the sun is restorative. Everything is open, everything is revealed. Here there is no possible deception, but the pure truth of things”.
Charman Clift Siren Songs. Translation by Patricia Anton.
Leopard, 296 pages, 21.95 euros
The lotus seekers. Translation by Patricia Anton.
Leopard, 280 pages, 21.95 euros
