A careful and honest writer, Leigh Fermor has above all a serious concern to communicate the truth both of what he observes and of his reactions to it.
He’s most interesting and important when describing his first Benedictine experience – how, as with a recipient of a new liver, attempted physical rejection was followed by blissful acceptance of a new life, particularly wrt sleep – and in his lamenting the English Dissolution – how our ruined abbeys should be offering people today the monastic life.

New words: Ogival. Velleities. Giaour. Villeggiatura.