The Road to Ephesus: A 1952 Odyssey through the Balkans and Turkey

This is a valuable account of the state of the Balkans and southeastern Eu- rope at the start of the 1950s. The author, a young Irishman, observed life and customs with a fresh and original eye and, notwithstanding constraints placed upon him in the former Yugoslavia under Tito, he provides a sharp and informative account of life in that country and delightfully surprising narratives on Greece and Turkey. Terence Killeen, Research Scholar James Joyce Centre. ‘An innocent abroad’, the author’s observations are acute. Where a more sea- soned writer might have felt compelled to linger and scratch away below the surface, John Joyce goes straight for what strikes him as unusual and wonderful at each point of his itinerary—the clothes and customs, the extraordinary wel- come and hospitality, the unexpected openness and readiness of people to talk to the stranger. He comes up as if by chance with a balanced variety of observa- tions and experiences, such as a visit to the ‘unique world’ of Mount Athos and a description of the bizarre and wonderful Cone-Country of Cappadocia. A mere detail of his travels is a stay in Trieste as the guest of “my namesake, Professor J. Stanislaus Joyce, who came to Trieste with his elder brother, James.” The world brought to life by his vibrant sketches sixty-five years ago has now mostly passed into history. Even then the author’s awareness that the things he saw were unlikely to survive much longer seems to have infected his style with a sense of urgency, a desire to throw the scene on paper before it disappears. Robert Nicholson, Dublin Writers Museum. Read more