Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 9 – THE GREEK CASE: VENEZIS 
291 
The earlier serialized 1924 version is very different from the versions of 1931 and 
1945. It is astonishing that the opening of the book, which made it famous, is 
completely missing. The serialized version has a much rougher demotic in keeping 
with the standards of the newspaper and in narrative style is much more introspective 
and reflective and for the most part avoids the sarcastic flippancy which colours the 
book. By contrast the book cuts out most of the narrator’s own thoughts and carries 
the story along with dialogue and sentences describing action. These stylistic 
changes apart, it is possible also to see major changes to the narrative. In the 
remainder of this section I will present three illustrative examples and then discuss 
their overall effect.
The first example is the episode at the beginning of chapter 7 of the book. The 
captives have arrived in Bergama to the horror of one of them, a watchmaker, 
because he fears vengeance for reprisals carried out by the Greeks and in which he 
had a part. After they are thrown into a tobacco warehouse, a Turkish officer comes 
in, greets the watchmaker by name and offers him tobacco and brings food. The 
officer is described in admiring terms as “one of the palicars who did not bow their 
heads under Greek occupation, took to the mountains and spent pride as if it had no 
use”.
41
. It then turns out that they had lived together before the war, that their wives 
had been like sisters and the Turk’s wife had been killed during the war (it is not 
clear exactly by whom or how deliberately). The watchmaker begs for mercy but to 
41
Venezis 2008, 108. 

---

CHAPTER 9 – THE GREEK CASE: VENEZIS 
292 
no avail. The officer leaves, and later in the night the watchmaker is led away 
without being allowed to see his family again. 
The watchmaker, his wife and child joined the captives at the end of chapter 2. Of 
the wife, the narrator remarks “Την ήξερα. Έπαιζε και πιάνο” (I knew her. She also 
played the piano),
42
, a sarcastic touch that emphasises the reversal of their fortunes. 
Things get much worse in chapter 4 in which the wife is the victim of violent 
multiple rape before the eyes of her child in a gutted church
43
. 
The only element which this narrative has in common with the 1924 version is the 
rape scene in the church. But in the 1924 version this is not just mindless violence 
but part of a threat to induce the watchmaker to reveal the whereabouts of buried 
treasure. When he reappears at the end of the night he tells his companions that he 
was taken to a Commandant (
Διοικητής
) who forced him to dig for it at random. 
When the search proves fruitless he is returned to other captives and thinks that the 
threats against him may become real. After an interval the other captives including 
the narrator are led to the next stage of their journey, but the watchmaker, his wife 
and child are kept behind, and the narrator learns no more of them.
44
.
For any consideration of 
Number 31328
as the testimony of a lived experience this 
episode is one of the most puzzling: other narrative divergences between the 1924 
version and the book can be explained away as omissions or differences of emphasis, 
42
Venezis 2008, 68. 
43
Venezis 2008, 79-81. 
44
Kampana
2(55), 1 April 1924 

---