This moving fable sees a young Greek writer set out to Crete to claim a small inheritance. But when he arrives, he meets Alexis Zorba, a middle-aged Greek man with a zest for life. Zorba has had a family and many lovers, has fought in the Balkan wars, has lived and loved - he is a simple but deep man who lives every moment fully and without shame. As their friendship develops, he is gradually won over, transformed and inspired along with the reader. Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis' most popular and enduring novel, has ...
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This moving fable sees a young Greek writer set out to Crete to claim a small inheritance. But when he arrives, he meets Alexis Zorba, a middle-aged Greek man with a zest for life. Zorba has had a family and many lovers, has fought in the Balkan wars, has lived and loved - he is a simple but deep man who lives every moment fully and without shame. As their friendship develops, he is gradually won over, transformed and inspired along with the reader. Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis' most popular and enduring novel, has its origins in the author's own experiences in the Peleponnesus in the 1920s. His swashbuckling hero has legions of fans across the world and his adventures are as exhilarating now as they were on first publication in the 1950s. 'There can never be any doubt that Kazantzakis was the possessor of genius.' Sunday Telegraph
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I had read "Zorba the Greek" many years ago and was prompted to return to it. It seemed to me that my reading had been too top heavy, intellectualized, and critical. I thought this way as well about the readings and discussions in my book group. And so, I vaguely remembered "Zorba", which I had read in an earlier translation, and thought the book had something important to say.
Kazantsakis' novel is a story about exuberance and enjoying life through activity, including sex, music, dance, and work. It seems to me that people today shy away from this exuberance and joy, particularly in the current climate, where sex is involved. There is a heavy aura of criticism, seriousness -- oh so serious -- a sense of self-righteousness, and tension in how people approach themselves and others and their community and country, or so it seems to me.
Written in 1946, the novel is set in Crete in the years following WW I. The book includes allusions to Greek political affairs, but the reader need not know a great deal about them to follow the story. The book is told in the first person by a nameless narrator, 35, who recounts has friendship with a much older man, Zorba, 65, over what is only a few months.
The narrator appears fairly well to do. He is introspective and bookish and carries a copy of Dante with him. His primary intellectual interest is in Buddhism and he is in the middle of writing a lengthy play about the Buddha's life and teachings. The narrator is travelling to Crete to work on an abandoned lignite mine when he meets Zorba. With his enthusiasm and charisma, Zorba quickly finds a place in the narrator's heart, and he is hired to supervise operations at the mine. The mine plays an important if secondary role in the story.
The two men sit on the beach, smoke and eat, and share their thoughts on sex, religion, nationalism, war, work, and much more. Zorba becomes involved with an aged, promiscuous French singer, Madam Hortense and eventually the narrator has a brief, ill-fated sexual encounter of his own. The two friends explore the beauties of Crete, share the life of the town, and also become involved with several monasteries and churches.
Zorba plays his music on the santouri he carries everywhere, leaps and dances, and sings. He tries to bring his friend out of his bookish, introspective life. Oddly enough, the Buddhism which the narrator studies seems closely related to the life-in-the -present of Zorba, without the intellectualization. Zorba wants to be involved in what he is doing at the moment and to give himself over to it completely, whether it is sex, work, eating, drinking, dance, or music. In one of many passages of discussion, the narrator gets Zorba to describe his earlier efforts at a middle-class middling life with a home, wife, and children. The narrator asks Zorba if he played his santouri to relax and "drown his sorrows". Zorba replies:
"Bah, it's pretty obvious that you don't play an instrument! What's this drivel your spouting? At home there are family worries; wife, kids, what are we going to eat, how will we dress, what will become of us. Pure hell! And the santouri needs a clean heart. If my wife says one word too many to me, what sort of heart do you want me to have for playing santouri? If the kids go hungry and whine, just you try playing! The santouri makes you think of nothing but santouri, Get it?"
There are many provocative passages and discussions throughout "Zorba the Greek" sometimes combined with activity.
The narrator introduces his story of Zorba in a Prologue in which he says that the four people who most influenced him are Homer, Henri Bergson, Nietzsche, and ... Zorba. He explains the influence of the first three figures, and Bergson's philosophy of elan vital seems closes to him. (Zorba almost illustrates it.) The narrator writes that "Zorba taught me to love life and not to fear death," The narrator regrets that he could not have learned more from Zorba. He was unable to follow Zorba's life but had to content himself with writing and preserving Zorba's story. He may be too harsh with himself. Everyone follows their own path, and learns what and when they can.
I was moved to reread this book after many years and to be inspired by Zorba.
