R.I. P. Patrick Leigh-Fermor
Very sorry, if not surprised, to learn of the death of Patrick Leigh-Fermor, at the age of 96. He did history’s most enviable walk, and wrote about it in two of the 20th century’s greatest travel books. What a pity he never finished the trilogy.
His letters to and from Deborah Devonshire (which I reviewed some time ago for Chronicles) are also a delight. His other books were to my mind slightly less successful, but his polite patience in trying to unravel the junk theology that is voodoo (in The Traveller’s Tree) is a marvel of diplomacy. 10 June 2011
