From an early age, New Zealand author David Cade has been fascinated with all things Greek. As a child, he listened to the music of Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. His journey to Greece fulfills a lifelong desire to hear rembetiko live in Athenian tavernas.
“At last I’m going to get to grips with Athens, I’m going to mine this city and find what it’s really all about, and from where and from what the magic and allure of all its extraordinary music arises,” he writes in his novel Athens – the Truth: Searching for Manos, Just Before the Bubble Burst.
In his novel, Cade wanders the streets of Athens for 16 days and recalls the sights the smells and the emotion he felt. As a tourist, he was warned of the Athens of 2009; stricken by debt, civil servant strikes, protests – yet he found the capital a warm, comforting place.
Cade hits the typical tourist haunts – Monastiraki, Plaka, the Acropolis – as well as less frequented quarters – Voula, Spata – and edgy Exarchia. The book has the chatty, anecdotal feel of a diary: “The exhilaration experienced this evening in that mezedopoleio has me feeling, as I fall asleep, like someone who has fallen totally in love, as if up till now I’ve been completely wasting my life!”
The author’s ability to dredge up odd historical curiosa will impress even veteran visitors to the city. The Church of Panaghia Kapnikarea on Ermou Street, for example, was named for the Byzantine tax official responsible for collecting the hearth (‘kapnos’) tax. Comprehensive detours into the stories of famous Greek musicians and artists – Nikos Xilouris, Alexandros Panagoulis, Yannis Tsarouchis – are equally intriguing.
Athens – The Truth: Searching for Manos, Just Before the Bubble Burst, by David Cade, published by Tales of Orpheus, 2013.
