Tom Stone
The Summer of My Greek Taverna
NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002.
Bio
• Knows Greece well
• Has written several Greek-language books
• Went to Patmos to have the solitude to write
a novel
• Left Greece 22 years, one wife, and two
children later
Narrative Techniques
• Tells a story: clear beginning, middle, end
• Labels the sections Appetizers, The Main
Course, Just Desserts, Extra Helpings (recipes)
• Goes back and forth between time periods:
being single, married; earlier time on Patmos
and when he comes back to run the taverna
• Includes lots of info about Greek thinking
• Bittersweet: good and bad things happen
• Love of Greece/Patmos is clear
• Makes use of Cavafy and other poets
Reservations
• Occasionally tells more gossip than we might
need (Theo cheating on his wife, for ex.)
• Too much info about the intimate relationship
with his wife (we can imagine)
• Some details are not so interesting; he’s
accurate in terms of his experience, but might
have edited to avoid so many names
• NB: His difficult year on Patmos mirrors mine
on Rhodes!
Appetizers (Hook)
• “The phone rang just as I was about to leave
home and trudge through the raw Cretan winter
to my tutoring job.
• Our pupils were mostly listless civil servants
looking to move up the pay scale and high school
students hoping for careers as guides, bank
clerks, and tourist police.
• The pay was minimal, and the blackboards
sprayed with so many layers of pale green paint
that writing on them was often like trying to use
chalk on the side of a cargo ship.” (5)
Enlists Empathy
• His wife has given up on her dream of being a
famous artist and reproduces Byzantine icons
for the tourist trade
• “American that I was, I was still struggling,
even at forty-two, to believe that downsizing
my dreams and taking on a steady job again
was a good thing.” (6)
• His “friend” Theo asks if Tom wants to rent his
taverna on Patmos for the summer, based on
an idle comment Tom had made some years
before.
Dangerous Combination
• Beautiful memories of what happened before
at “The Beautiful Helen”
• Dislikes current job
• Wants to leave Crete and return to Patmos
• Has plenty of illusions about what it would be
like to run a taverna
Back Story
• “One of the first things people want to know is
how you do it—how you can just pull up
stakes on your career and go off and live on a
Greek island.” (cf Phil Doran) (10)
• Common story: “Practically all the foreigners I
know who have ended up living in Greece for
any extended period of time say the same
thing: I just went for a few weeks, but then…
• Went to be alone and work on his writing (cf
Iyer in Japan)
Patmos
• Chooses the island randomly
• Island’s famous history: in A.D. 95, John is sent
into exile from Ephesus by emperor Domitian
• After Domitian dies, John prepares to go back,
but first he’s asked to write down his
teachings
• Wrote his gospel and had the visions recorded
in the Book of Revelations
• Monastery of St. John= island’s most famous
attraction
Connection to Livadi
• “There are places that seem to be waiting for
you out there somewhere, like unmet lovers,
and when, and if, you come upon them, you
know, instantly and unquestioningly, that they
are the ones.” (20)
• “Like Odysseus, I felt as if I were coming home
to Ithaca after a long voyage through the
troubled waters of foreign lands whose
languages I never really understood.”
Detour
• Once on the island, he falls in love:
• “She was French and full of mystery, and her
desire to be left alone had mesmerized all of
the men on the island.” (22)
• She comes to the island to work on her art,
although she eventually gives up and
produces commercial art instead
• They eventually marry and have two kids but
move to Crete to have better jobs
Too Much Temptation
• They want to get back to Patmos, but Danielle
warns him: his friend’s nickname is O Lados,
the oily (slick) one
• Meanwhile he has visions of making lots of
money during the tourist season, cooking
rather than teaching
• His friend Melya’ warns him it’s a bad idea and
that Theo is not to be trusted (in fact, Theo
won’t let her rent the taverna with Stone)
Greek Logic
• Love to bargain
• Distrust one another (35)
• When Stone is buying a farmhouse, Theo
warns him “not to be so trusting, particularly
around Greeks, who would cheat you as soon
as look at you.” ‘Oh?’ I said. ‘But what about
you? You’re a Greek.’
• ‘Me, you can trust. But nobody else.’”
Reality Hits
• Agrees to rent the taverna for the summer
• Stone will cook and do most of the work
himself
• Once a sum is agreed on, Stone becomes
aware “of a subtle but seismic shift in the
ground of our relationship. In [Theo]’s eyes, I
was now a different person. I had crossed the
line between the tourists and the Greeks. I
was no longer a giver; I was a taker.” (49)
More Trouble
• Other Patmians react in the same way.
• “As soon as my new status became known, my
relationships with both my Greek and my
foreign friends would undergo a similar, and
initially almost imperceptible,
transformation.”
• He compares it to daylight suddenly
evaporating into night. (49)
• Melya’ is so mad she won’t even talk to him.
And More Trouble
• Danielle figures out: don’t you need a permit?
• He pretends it’s not a problem.
• “I’d brushed it aside, figuring that if it wasn’t
mentioned, it somehow wouldn’t exist. But
now the cat was out of the bag.”
• “When you live in a foreign country as long as
I had, particularly in a place as tiny as Patmos,
you start to feel you belong there, and that
you have the same rights as its citizens. But of
course this isn’t true. Ever.” (54)
The Main Course
• He and Danielle are happy to get back to
Patmos with Sara and Matthew, but things are
not how they remember them
• The Beautiful Helen was no longer cozy;
instead if was crowded with cheap plastic
crates and cracked, whitewashed walls
• He soon has second thoughts about
everything.. But his sleeping wife can’t help
him (73)
Vivid Description
• At 3am, wide awake, he goes out to the
terrace
• “The valley and sea were a ghostly silver
under the moonlight, and there was a silence
behind the silence that was immense, holy,
sovereign, like the voice of God saying, Forget
it, there are no answers to the questions
you’re asking, and no place to hide either.”
• “Living in Greece gives rise to this kind of
philosophizing…” (73)
Culture Clashes
• He wants to tell all his friends about his
taverna project, but Theo hasn’t even
mentioned it to them
• One reason why might be fear of “toh kako’
mahti,” the evil eye, which is propelled by
envy.
• “Therefore, you must try to hide your good
fortune and certainly never crow over it.” (85)
Worse Yet
• He assumes his friends will be happy for him
in his new venture; instead all they do is warn
him about O Lados.
• When a former friend dines at the taverna and
finds a dead fly in the tzatziki, “Thoma”
understands “I was no loner a friend or an
equal, or even a tourist. I was a servant… This
wasn’t a dinner party, no matter how much I
wanted it to be.” (107)
More Changes
• He’s used to the magical time of day when the
afternoon starts sinking into the evening
• “Then the surface of the sea would seem to
float above itself on nearly imperceptible
swells, iridescent with contrasting layers and
swirls of turquoise, violet, and pink. That there
could be such beauty—and such stillness– was
almost incomprehensible.” (111)
• But in the restaurant biz, it’s the calm before
the storm. (His relationship to the island has
changed.)
New Schedule
• At this time of day they have to frantically
clear away the rest of lunch while trying to
prepare for dinner
• At 7am, they open the restaurant for
fishermen returning from night fishing and a
few stray tourists and start cooking main
dishes
• Lunch: from 11-3 or 4
More Realities
• Dinner: starts at 7, goes into full swing at 8,
lasts until midnight… or until 3 or 4
• He can’t kick people out or say no to
latecomers.
• By the time July hits, he’s working at such a
frenetic pace that he can hardly even
remember it.
• Money’s pouring in… but also out.. To the
several workers, and for more supplies
Checks and Balances
• Gets a good review from a critic for the
English-language newspaper
• But the police come to look for him the last
week of July
• He doesn’t have a permit
• A quick consultation of the other restaurant
workers leads him to the only possible
solution: a consultation with a woman in Hora
who can save him from “the evil eye”
• Somebody has complained that he’s been
working illegally
• While at the police station, he’s hit with a
perfect solution: he’ll apply for a permit
• The policeman pauses and shrugs. “You can
apply, but they won’t give you one.” (141)
• “But would it be legal for me to work while I’m
waiting for an answer?”
• He paused for a much longer time. “Yes.”
• “And how long will it take for an answer?”
• “From Athens? 3 or 4 months…..”
• This will take him past the end of tourist
season.
• “[The policeman] leaned forward and pressed
a button on his intercom. ‘Kosta! Bring me an
application for a work permit!’”
• “He looked up at me and allowed himself the
slightest of smiles. As for me, it was all I could
do not to throw myself over the desk and
smother him in an embrace…”
• Feels he’s conquered a fatal disease…
Starts to Feel the Pain
• Has no time for his family
• “Horrendous snoring” because he’s so tired
(149)
• Varicose veins in his leg start to bother him
• He’s invited to a night party on a northern
beach given by a Swedish woman dating one
of his helpers
• He’s not even sure he can take the time, but
he’s lured by the prospect of “ghosts”
Developments
• Once at sea, “all the exhaustion I had felt
instantly washed away.” (154)
• “There is something about being on the sea
that always spells adventure, especially at
night, when the darkness surrounding you
seems dense with the unknown.” (His whole
summer has been full of darkness caused by
the unknown!)
Island History
• Nazis had inhabited the island. The Greek
resistance found an informer and took him to
this particular beach, where they shot the
informer and some of the Nazis too
• Legend has it that the ghosts wandered the
beach at night, esp. on the anniversary of the
event, hunting for the bodies
• Clincher: the shooter is rumored to be Theo
Paneyiri
• The profit of the whole summer has hinged on
preparations for the big feast on August 6th,
the major party of the year for Livadi.
• It’s in honor of the Transfiguration of Christ,
“ee Metamorfosi.”
• They work like dogs all day and night: at the
end of the evening Theo says their profit has
been 40,000 drachmae.
• Stone knows this isn’t true, since a nearby
café has made 3x as much profit selling coffee.
• Thoma tries to give him another chance. Theo
recounts and says, yeah, right, it was 49,000.
• “I was speechless. His brazen ability to lie like
that in front of his sons and to me, a man who
had been his friend for 9 years and was
perhaps the only person on the island who
trusted him, took my breath away.” (169)
• “I sat there unable to touch my food,
immobilized by this sudden revelation of how
trusting I had been, how laughably naïve.”
• “And all my grand and shattered illusions
began to sink in a swamp of humiliation.”
Just Desserts
• He’s so mad he confronts Theo, prepared to
ask for his money back, but loses his cool.
• “What do you want, Theo? To kill me?! Like
you did that Nazi?!” (176)
• When the blood drains from Theo’s face,
Thoma knows that his info is right.
• When he threatens to go to the police with
the info, Theo agrees to pay him back
• Thoma works one more day, then quits, and
leaves, taking a job in Northern Greece.
• Takes him quite a while to ever go back to
Patmos.
• By then the sons have taken over the
restaurant.
• “Beyond that, I could see Theo seated in the
shadows. He was staring out at the sea,
slipping the worry beads over and over.
Otherwise, he was as motionless as if he had
been carved in stone.” (199)