DeBernieres characteristic styles
... black humour. The way by which De Berniere uses bathos creates an infuriating effect on the reader every time that it is used. The reader feels cheated out of a story – we want to immerse ourselves in the romance, violence and emotions but De Berniere, every single time, lets us get involved up to a point and then brings us back to reality. In the same way, De Berniere uses the technique in a similar way, where he describes something in an extremely lyrical or romantic way, and then suddenly comes in with a very ordinary and everyday. An example of this can be seen in chapter 73 (‘Restitution’): “ ‘I see you still have my ring.’ ‘Only because I got arthritis in my fingers and I couldn’t get it off’” Here, De Berniere reels the reader in by building up the romance between Pelagia and Captain Corelli – linking the love from their youth, with the love, which it is obvious they still feel for each other. But then he writes a very unromantic line, which breaks the amorous tension, so well built up, in the chapter. Another aspect of De Berniere’s style that can be seen in both this novel, and his previous novels, is the mystical, or magical, element. In ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’, this is nowhere near as prominent as it is in his other novels, however, especially at the beginning of the novel, there is some injection of the mystical. The very first chapter contains a certain amount of this, with the comical, but unbelievable, story of Dr.Iannis and Stamatis’ ear. Although De Berniere describes this as a medical procedure, we are still aware that this is more of a fairy-tale scene, then an extract from a doctor’s life. Through this effect, de Berniere informs the reader, from the very start, that this is a story and not a historical or factual description of Cephallonia. The same technique is used in chapter 3, where De Berniere cerates another fairy-tale scene, where Velisarios is displaying his ‘strong man’ status, in a circus-like manor: “ ‘I will lift anything that it takes three men to lift,’ he cried, and the villagers joined in with those words that they had heard so many times before, a hours well-rehearsed. Velisarios may have been strong, but he never varied his patter.” In this quote, De Berniere has also used a simple, non-lyrical sentence to, in a similar way to the way that he has used bathos, bring the reader back to reality - he ends the description of the giant fairy-tale figure with the belittling comment that he is monotonous. However, perhaps, De Berniere is describing the community in Cephallonia, rather than demoting Velisarios. Another technique, used by De Berniere to create his characteristic style, is the structure of the book. De Berniere, at first seemingly randomly, gives us three different types of writing, scenes, characters and countries – Cephallonia (the story of Mandras and Pelagia), Political and historical writing (‘The Duce’ – chapter 2) and the journal of a solider (‘L’Omosessuale’). He presents the reader with these stories as totally separate events – each...