This book will take you on a journey beyond the book itself.
I can feel a summer of research prompted by this marvel. ( )

L'opera magistrale di Predrag Matvejevic che con rigore saggistico e grande poesia ci conduce in una coinvolgente navigazione attraverso il Mediterraneo. Non solo il mare che separa le coste dell’Europa da quelle dell’Africa e del Vicino Oriente, ma uno specchio d'acqua che unisce pur mantenendo nei secoli intatte le culture
e le tradizioni dei paesi che vi si affacciano. Un'indagine condotta seguendo un percorso fisico che ripercorre porti e carte nautiche, confini, isole, fari. Religioni, idiomi e gerghi, l'olivo e la vite, il corallo e il sale in un teatro millenario, dove si sono incontrate, scontrate, unite, mischiate e affrontate culture diverse.
Uomo cosmopolita di grande spessore, esponente del dissenso nei confronti del socialismo dell’Est Europa Matvejevic avrebbe meritato il premio Nobel che, malgrado un appello di tanti intellettuali (tra cui Claudio Magris) non gli è stato conferito. Scomparso nel 2017,era nato a Mostar da padre russo di Odessa e madre croata, portando nell'animo quelle radici multiculturali che gli consentirono la grande apertura verso il mondo. ( )

Recensie(s)

De Kroatische schrijver en essayist Predag Matvejevic heeft een ode in proza aan de Middellandse Zee geschreven. Dit boek is het eerste dat van hem in het Nederlands verschijnt. Door middel van vertellingen, legendes, reisverslagen, feitelijke beschrijvingen van de geografie, de handel en de ambachten van de volkeren die dit gebied bewoonden en bewoond hebben, schetst de schrijver een groots, gevarieerd en mysterieus beeld van een van de belangrijkste Europese zeeën. Voor hem is de Middellandse Zee een mythische zee die volkeren en religies verbindt, een "heilige plaats" die nationale grenzen teniet doet en ons terugvoert naar de oorsprong van onze Europese beschaving. Dit fascinerende boek is gedrukt met een duidelijke letter en is geïllustreerd met een aantal reprodukties van oude prenten en kaarten, soms niet altijd even duidelijk. In deze tijd van politieke strijd, etnische oorlogen en economische chaos verenigt dit boek weer volkeren en religies tot een harmonieus geheel.
(Biblion recensie, E. Agoston-Nikolova.)

Predrag Matvejevic's writing glints and eddies as if subject to the same winds and currents that stir his Mediterranean. "Crickets often crop up in accounts of Mediterranean moods," we read. "The sound or possibly song of the cricket does not disturb insomnia—I know from experience—on summer nights when waking is easier than sleeping and the spirits keep watch and almost seem to merge over the Mediterranean." In the space of a few pages we encounter knots, ballast, voyages, swimming, diving, shipwrecks, burial at sea, sponge and coral gathering, rivers, and the distribution of olive, fig, and agave. The author has stories to tell about each topic and freely mingles the observations and discoveries of fellow travelers, ancient and contemporary, with his own, creating a powerful narrative tide.

The book is divided into three sections: "Breviary," "Maps," and "Glossary." "Breviary" catalogs the sights, smells, sounds, and features common to the many peoples who share the Mediterranean—Jews, Arabs, Copts, Berbers, Turks, Syrians, Greeks, Romans (and Italians), Spaniards (and Catalonians), the French, Dalmatians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Romanians, even Russians. "Maps" retraces the same itinerary through documents up to the seventeenth century that represent the Mediterranean; "Glossary" deals with linguistic diversity and history. The brilliant variety of details and the verve with which they are conveyed will appeal to active and armchair travelers alike.

With this portrait of a place and its civilizations, Matvejevic joins a cohort of writers that includes Claudio Magris (Danube), Angelo Maria Ripellino (Magic Prague), and Neal Ascherson (Black Sea)—authors who have created a literary genre all their own, at once personal and objective, imaginative and erudite. Although, as Matvejevic says, "we do not discover the sea ourselves, nor do we view it exclusively through our own eyes," this Mediterranean is joyously his, and it becomes ours as well. ( )

At LH: http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000270.php