In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary.
It has been described as a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic.
This is the second travel memoir that I have read within a month. And it is altogether of a far superior calibre to the account of Bryson's latest roamings around Britain. Fermor came to be regarded as Britain's greatest living travel writer during his lifetime, which spanned 96 years. That I found Fermor's book tedious is accounted for by several factors. I did find the author's raconteur style rather grandiloquent, and this was not helped by a very able narration by Crispin Redman of the book on Audible. He managed to inject the tone of a rather self-centred and pompous young traveller. Nevertheless I doubt I would have been able to read this book in paper form. In the final analysis I have come to the conclusion that I am not an armchair traveller and that vicarious globe-trotting is not my thing.
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