Three Summers – Margarita Liberaki (1946)

Translated from the Greek by Karen van Dyck

Three Summers is one of three #Witmonth books I still have to review, ideally by the end of the month. I have rather a lot going on at the moment so not really sure if I will manage it.

This is a novel that several bloggers have reviewed over the last year or so, and it became one I really wanted to read. Jacqui kindly sent me her copy (which I shall be sending back soon) so that I could read it over #Witmonth and I am so glad that I did. It’s a modern Greek classic, a coming of age type story, filled with sunshine and the voices of three sisters.

“That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria’s had cherries around the rim, Infanta’s had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. When we lay in the hayfield wearing them, the sky, the wildflowers, and the three of us all melted into one. ‘Where are you? Off hiding again?’ my mother called. Shhhhh. We whispered and told secrets. Other years Maria and Infanta had told the secrets, leaving me out since I was the youngest. But this year…”

Growing up between the wars, in the Greek countryside near Athens are three sisters, living in a big old house with their mother, grandfather and Aunt Theresa, surrounded by a beautiful garden. Maria is the oldest, sexually bold, but ready to settle down and raise her own family, Infanta, distant but beautiful and the youngest Katerina – through who’s eyes we see the majority of the story. Each sister has their own small plot of garden to tend, each plot reflecting the personality of its owner. Maria’s garden is all little neat squares, while Infanta’s is wild, and has almond trees which need lots of watering, Katerina’s garden is full of flowers, the planting as spontaneous as she is.

Katerina is dreamy, rebellious, and deeply curious. There are secrets and dark events in the family’s past. Aunt Theresa changed forever when she was raped by her fiancé as a young woman. Katerina is especially drawn to the story of her Polish grandmother – who scandalously ran away from her husband and two children. Katerina is fascinated by this romantic figure – who nobody ever mentions, but Katerina gets some little bits of information from the family housekeeper who has been around for years.

“Memories… memories. The air is heavy with them. I can’t stand it anymore. I no longer fit in that big room with the piano, the little boxes of seeds, the peacock embroidery. I run outside and lie down on the grass. I look up at the moon between the two eucalyptuses; it touches the ledge of the cistern, and I can see the silhouette of a frog in its circle of light. But the frog is not on the moon. Like me, it is on the ground looking up.”

The sisters enjoy a good relationship, sharing secrets and dreams, talk about the local boys, gossip about neighbours, and try to figure out their parents. Their parents are separated, following their father’s infidelity, he now living in Athens – they visit him and his colourful brother from time to time.

As the title suggests the novel is set over three summers. Three summers during which these three sisters lives start to change, as they cross that divide between girlhood and adulthood. In the first summer, Maria has a sexual adventure with a neighbour’s son, who she has no intention at all of marrying. She wants to marry, as she announces to her surprised family, and she settles quickly for another neighbour; Marios, the equivalent of the boy next door.

Marios’s mother, Laura Parigori, is a fascinating character, a traditional wife and mother in many ways, she clearly yearns secretly for more. We feel an unspoken frustration in her for the smallness of her life, the things she will never do, she is still only in her forties, and while that was older then, than it is now, the years stretch ahead of her, formless and empty.

Time marches on and both Infanta and Katerina must negotiate their own fragile love affairs – while watching their elder sister settle into marriage and impending motherhood. Intense feelings, jealousy and uncertainty enter the lives of these young women – as they try to make sense of these new and exciting relationships. Katerina falls madly in love with David an astronomer who is writing a book – and when she sees him in the company of Laura Parigori a few times, she is mad with jealousy. Infanta seems taken up with Nikitas, with whom she shares a love of horse riding which they are able to do together.

Ever curious, Katerina begins to make discoveries about the past, her mother, a somewhat shadowy figure throughout this novel – seems to be acting oddly and Katerina is determined to find out why.

There is a lot more going on in this novel than the premise might at first suggest, themes of marriage, fidelity, women’s roles, the bond between siblings and motherhood are all delicately explored. The gorgeous descriptions of the natural world, the lushness of Liberaki’s prose and this beautiful translation make this a gorgeous summery read.