Lovers, traitors and Young Turks: ‘Pascali’s Island’

The novel also takes place during the Muslim festival of Bayram, which marks the end of the Ramadan month of fasting, and the blood-soaked sacrifice of hundreds of sheep that have their throats cut to supply the feasts.  Symbolic knives appear in the novel during that slaughter, when they’re sharpened for the kill and sold in street stalls, and when they’re used more gently to clean a newly discovered statue.  The anguished bleating of the doomed sheep frightens Pascali and foreshadows his tragic fate.

Pascali’s origins are uncertain.  His English mother was an acrobat and prostitute; the identity of his father, perhaps Maltese, was unknown.  The 45-year-old Pascali— intelligent, cultured, polyglot, perceptive, fearful and shabby but with a certain dash—also works as a guide and fixer for foreign visitors.  Trapped on the island with no house, family or children, he has a stoic capacity for pain and is always looking out for lucrative clients.

The novel—written in a formal, mannered style, with poetic descriptions of the landscape, sea and sky—is told in Pascali’s series of  letters to the sultan in Constantinople.  He complains that his faithful reports during the last twenty years have never been answered or even acknowledged.  Though he’s been paid every month, his inadequate and humiliating salary has always remained the same.  No one knows why some clerk (perhaps now dead) had ordered the money to be sent.  Since there’s no machinery for countermanding anything in the Turkish capital, no one ever stops the order and the pitiful gratuity keeps coming.  Though Pascali has to cadge drinks and sometimes goes without food at the end of the month, he has never changed his profession and arranged for a more profitable paymaster.  He’s only cut out to be an endless correspondent and ineffective spy, and never sees the results of his reports.

There’s a subtle parallel between the composition of Unsworth’s novel and Pascali’s letters: both are the “result of long hours of creative tension.”  The book begins and ends with exactly the same flattering and obsequious phrases that suggest Pascali’s circular lack of progress: “Lord of the world.  Shadow of God on earth.  God bring you increase.”  Unsworth’s learned and evocative style includes many Latin phrases; translated Turkish and Greek words; references to the artists Constable, Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky, and to writers from the Pre-Socratics to Spinoza and Nietzsche, Hauptmann and Rilke.  He enhances the meaning of the novel by quoting French poetry from Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Apollinaire, German verse from Stefan George; and by alluding to Swift and Tennyson.

Unsworth effectively suggests themes of loss and longing when Pascali’s narrative echoes lines from poetry: “that self-same sound they must have been hearing” and “my head aches and I feel” from Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”; the complex origins and impending doom of Kurtz from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “The whole race of men had gone into the making” and “whatever daimonled him down there in the first place was conducting him straight to mania, to the excess of his own nature.”  The philosophical advice of a German, “You must these moral qualities transcend” (with the verb at the end as in German) echoes Stein’s advice to Conrad’s Lord Jim.  Unsworth also arouses interest by hinting at important events before describing them: the collapse of the saint’s effigy, the reason for the Englishman’s dangerous delays, the meaning of terra rossa.

Both novel and film open as the Englishman Anthony Bowles (perhaps named for the American writer Paul Bowles, who wrote about exotic Muslim lands) arrives on the island and claims to be an archeologist writing a book on classical antiquities.  Pascali sees him as a promising source of income and offers himself, with obsequious modesty, as an interpreter: “My name is Pascali.  Basil Pascali.  You are newly arrived on the island, I believe.  I thought since I speak English, you know, after a fashion, that you might need some help, the services of an interpreter or guide.  If I can be of any assistance to you, I hope you will not hesitate to ask.”

After introducing Bowles to the wealthy and attractive Jewish-Austrian painter Lydia Neuman in the hotel restaurant, Pascali excuses himself, boldly steals Bowles’ key and slips into his hotel room.  He discovers in Bowles’ luggage a small marble head of a woman, a notebook with details of Bowles’ travels in the Levant and, surprisingly for a scholar, a revolver.

Pascali’s main work is to act as intermediary and interpreter between Bowles and the powerful Turkish governor and commandant of the garrison, Mahmoud Pasha.  He’s advised by his Arab land-agent Izzet Effendi, the vulturine embodiment of depravity and avarice.  Bowles wants to obtain a monthly lease to explore the area owned by the Pasha. Pascali says there’s no need for a lease since he already has access, but Bowles mysteriously insists that he must have one.

On their first visit to the Pasha, Bowles offers 200 liras (about $12,250 in 1908) which, Pascali informs him, is far more than the land is worth.  “ ‘Such an offer will make them suspicious.’ ‘I think not.  Please do as I ask.’ ”  Torn between distrust of the foreigner and desire for profit, the Pasha says Tamam (all right) and accepts the extravagant offer.  Izzet warns Pascali that the Pasha will hold him personally responsible for completing the arrangement.  Pascali then discovers at the Ottoman bank that Bowles has not ordered the money from London to pay for the lease.

Pascali knows that the news from Constantinople (as Greeks still call Istanbul) is very bad and the whole Ottoman government is about to collapse.  But he desperately wants to acquire enough money to go to the capital and discover the reason for the shameful neglect of his conscientious reports.  Bowles tells him that Constantinople is “the last place I would want to go just now.”  He advises Pascali to get out before the Greeks take over the island and find work as an interpreter in Europe.

Another, less lucrative source of income, is the rich and naïve American, Mrs Marchant, who’s traveling alone in the Levant and needs a reliable guide.  Pascali offers to escort her to see the ceremony of the island’s patron, Saint Alexei.  But as the saint’s huge effigy is carried into the church, it topples over, falls on its face and snaps off its head at the neck.  The furious Greeks blame Pascali for the catastrophe and shout that he’s “in the pay of the Turk and in league with the Devil”.  To save himself he abandons Mrs Marchant and rushes like a coward out of the church.  This violent Christian ceremony matches the bloody Moslem festival of Bayram.

In the second meeting with the Pasha and Izzet, Bowles tells them that he’s discovered valuable objects in the course of his researches.  He wants to change the lease so he has the right to excavate and is willing to pay double for it.  Then, like an expert showman, he places the treasured objects on the Pasha’s desk: “the marble head of a woman, pale honey-colored, the size of a smallish human fist.”  It is the same head that Bowles had brought to the island and that Pascali had discovered in his hotel room.  Alongside the head Bowles also places a thick circlet of gold set with precious blue stones and other promising pieces.

Izzet informs Bowles that these objects are the property of the government.  He counters by saying, “I am aware of that.  And I intend to see that they are handed over to the proper authorities in Constantinople.”  The Pasha, of course, has the power to cancel the lease at any time.  But he wants to get the golden treasure, and does not want the Turkish authorities in the capital or the British  Consul in Smyrna to learn about them.  So Izzet offers to buy back the lease, for which Bowles has so far paid only a 5% deposit of 10 liras.  For the disruption of his research and delay of his book, Bowles now boldly asks for 700 liras, considerably more than Pascali’s annual income.  After some discussion, Bowles accepts 550—a clear profit of 540 liras.

After Bowles completes his masterful performance, Pascali remarks, “One would almost say that you had been through this kind of thing before.”  When Bowles compares his own high concept of honor to the behavior of the mercenary Turks, Pascali reveals that he’s aware of the deception: “the head you produced from your bag, with the air of a conjuror if I may say so, that self-same head was in your possession when you set foot on this island, and so by inference were all the other objects which you laid on Mahmoud Pasha’s desk. . . . The laws against that kind of thing are severe in the domains of the Sultan, not to say savage. . . . A word from me would certainly be sufficient to spoil your game here, and lose you the money.”  When the angry Bowles calls him “some kind of swindler,” Pascali weakly defends himself by stating, “No, not some kind—the best kind, I am the best kind.”  To keep silent, Pascali demands 200 liras and accepts 150.  Just as Bowles had warned the Pasha, he now tells Bowles that he has left a damaging account of this deception in a sealed envelope, “with forwarding instructions in the event of my disappearance and death.”

Bowles concludes by voicing two important themes of the novel: their secret duplicity and the elusive nature of reality.  Pascali writes in his confessional letter, “Bowles despises me, he has done so from the very start.  But it is the me in him that he despises.  Adepts both at the partial lie, blends of reality and illusion.”  Both men are also emotionally connected by being in love with Lydia, whose name means “beautiful one” in Greek.  But the bisexual Pascali, whom she regards merely as a friend, also goes to the Turkish baths every week to be masturbated by a handsome boy.

As Bowles becomes Lydia’s lover, he devises a second swindle.  Pascali frantically warns him to complete the agreement: “Your life is in danger.  Mine too. . . . Take my advice before it is too late.  Let them have the papers back on the terms they have offered.”  Bowles has deceived the Pasha, who doesn’t know there are no treasures on the site.  He also deceives Pascali when he accidentally discovers a genuine antique statue, and continues to delay so he can unearth, clean, steal and get credit for discovering it.  After Pascali spies on Bowles and realizes his second plot, he helps him clean the rare bronze statue of a handsome youth, which recalls the boy massaging his flesh in the baths: “I worked lower down on the pectoral slopes and rib cage, supplying oil gently but firmly, softening by repeated application the encrustations of clay.”

In an ironic exchange with Pascali, Bowles self-righteously suggests his superior intellect and cunning, and justifies his perverted idealism:

“Tell me,” I said, “what did you mean that day, when you said you were an instrument?”

“Oh, that.” he said.  “Well, someone has to show them.”

“Show them ?”

“The error of their ways, you know.”

“A sort of mission?”

“You could put it like that.”

Pascali is finally convinced that Bowles plans to cheat him out of the promised money.  He steals Bowles’ diary, with its detailed record of the swindles he’s been performing throughout Asia Minor, and takes revenge by betraying him to the Turks.  At that very moment, he returns to his room to find an unsigned note urging him to get clear of the island and containing the 150 liras they had agreed on.  Since Bowles was on the site and did not have the money, Pascali assumes it came as a farewell present from his beloved Lydia.

As Bowles is hoisting the statue on a scaffold, the Pasha, informed by Pascali, leads his soldiers to the site and finds that the Turkish guards have been shot by the Greek rebels.  The Pasha’s men shoot Bowles and Lydia, who planned to escape with him.  The statue, like the saint’s effigy in the church, falls on top of Bowles; it crushes him, like the unearthed statue, into the ground.  Bowles’ stolen and incriminating notebook is now worthless.  Pascali, devastated by his tragic misreading of Bowles’ motives, which suggests his ineptitude as a spy, has become part of the “sacrifice” of the sheep and his friends.  After spying on the Greeks for twenty years, he must helplessly wait for them to capture and kill him for his treachery.

The excellent film version (1988) of the novel was shot on the stunning Greek islands of Rhodes and Symi, 24 miles northwest of Rhodes.  Every page of the script had to be approved by the Greek censor.  The film set was not allowed to show the Turkish flag, nor use Turkish actors.  The Pasha was Jordanian; Izzet was Polish, with an artificially beaked nose.  The speech and appearance of the short, dark, bald and nervous Ben Kingsley as Pascali (fat in the novel, thin in the film) provide a striking physical contrast to the tall, blond, handsome and self-assured Charles Dance as Bowles.

Expertly written and directed by James Dearden, the film closely follows Unsworth’s narration, sharp dialogue and twists of plot.  The film eliminates the novel’s wrestling scene, the discussions of art and morality, and suggests rather than describes Pascali’s pleasuring in the baths.  Pascali finally gets 500 liras from the generous Bowles, not 150 from Lydia.

Dearden’s additions are effective.  Pascali repeatedly visits the Ottoman bank and finds that Bowles’ money has not arrived from London; and at the end he makes an ineffectual attempt to punish himself by drowning.  The film expands Bowles’ rivalry with the German agent who wants to mine bauxite for armaments; and Bowles discovers the statue by falling down a steep hill rather than forcing his way through the underbrush.  The most significant addition is the love affair of Bowles and Lydia (Helen Mirren), the languid and sensual 35-year-old who wears oriental robes and paints colorful, exotic and Matisse-like works of art.  The lovers go horseback riding on the beach, swim in the nude (excitedly spied on by Pascali) and make love in her bedroom.  The film ends tragically with Bowles and Lydia dead and Pascali doomed.

Both novel and film portray the clash between the power and corruption of the Turkish officials, the danger and fear of Pascali, and the daring nonchalance of Bowles. It also exposes their corrupt and pretentious codes, tested by historical events, as they attempt to deceive and exploit each other; the conflict of violence and beauty, deception and betrayal, reality and illusion.

Jeffrey Meyers published James Salter: Pilot, Screenwriter, Novelist in February 2024.  His Parallel Lives: From Freud and Mann to Arbus and Plath will appear on July 3, 2024.  His book, 45 Ways to Look at Hemingway , will be out in July 2025, all with Louisiana State University Press.

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