Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Südwind
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love talk, wit and Mediterranean atmosphere, and anyone curious about how a place can change a person. Pleasure, belief and moral certainties meet in the company of eccentrics, schemers and seekers.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
South Wind is a comic novel by Norman Douglas, published in 1917. It is set on Nepenthe, an imaginary island in the Mediterranean, shaped by Douglas's long years of life on and around the Bay of Naples and Capri. The name comes from an old Greek word for a drug that drives away sorrow, and the island lives up to it. People arrive with firm opinions and leave with softer ones.
The book has little plot in the usual sense. It is a gathering of talkers, eccentrics, schemers and seekers, all under a warm wind that makes every rule seem negotiable. At its centre is a respectable English bishop who comes to visit relatives and finds his certainties tested by sun, wine, argument and charming company. You get sharp portraits, long conversations that are funny and bold, and a picture of a place that makes people more honest and also more careless. Let us begin with the bishop and his arrival.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A bishop lands on NepentheFree
- 2Mr Keith teaches the art of living
- 3A crowd of odd characters gathers
- 4The island holds old stories beneath its charm
- 5Moral drift is the real subject
- 6Talk, wit and place carry the telling
Punkt 1 von 6
A bishop lands on Nepenthe
The story opens with the arrival of Thomas Heard, an English bishop who has spent his working life in Africa as Bishop of Bampopo. He is decent, earnest and used to being listened to. He has come to Nepenthe to visit his relatives, and he expects a short, quiet stay in a pleasant corner of Europe.
The island does not feel quiet for long. From the first hours, Heard meets people who talk about morals and manners in ways he has never heard at home. Nobody seems shocked by anything, and nobody seems in a hurry. The weather helps. The south wind, called the scirocco, hangs over the place and makes everyone a little lazy, a little frank and a little more forgiving of themselves.
Douglas uses Heard as the eyes of the reader. The bishop is not a fool, and he is not a hypocrite. He simply holds his beliefs as fixed points, and the book wants to see what happens when fixed points meet a place where nothing is fixed. His first reactions are polite curiosity and mild alarm.
This setup gives the novel its comic engine. A good man from a stricter world is set down among people who have made an art of doing as they please, and the question is not whether he will be tempted but how, and by what. The answer comes through conversations at dinners, walks and gatherings.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Südwind
What is South Wind about?
It is a comic novel about an English bishop who visits the imaginary Mediterranean island of Nepenthe and meets a set of witty, unconventional residents. Their talk and the island's mood challenge his fixed ideas about morals and pleasure.
Where is Nepenthe in South Wind?
Nepenthe is an invented island in the Mediterranean. Douglas based it largely on Capri and the Bay of Naples, where he lived for years. Its name comes from a Greek word for a drug that banishes sorrow.
Who is Mr Keith in South Wind?
Mr Keith is an elderly, cultivated Englishman who has settled on Nepenthe. He is witty and tolerant, and he acts as a kind of guide to Bishop Heard, talking with him about pleasure, belief and how to live.
When was South Wind written and published?
Norman Douglas published South Wind in 1917. It is a work of fiction, though the island setting and many types of character draw on the foreign community he knew around Naples and Capri.
Is South Wind hard to read?
No. The story opens with a bishop arriving on an island, and the narrator is an easy, amusing host who guides you from one character to the next. Each person is drawn in a few strokes, then allowed to talk.