Zorba the Greek (novel)
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| Author | Nikos Kazantzakis |
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| Original title | Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά |
| Country | Greece |
| Language | Greek |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | John Lehmann Ltd |
| Released | 1946 (Greek Version) |
| Released in English | 1952 London, 1953 New York |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0684825546 |
- For other uses, see Zorba.
Zorba the Greek is a novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis in 1946 [1]. It is considered to be Kazantzakis' most enduring and successful novel, having the ability to be thought-provoking and insightful, regardless of the era. In it a young Greek intellectual (replaced by an Englishman in the famous film), the narrator, is writing on a manuscript about the Buddha. He meets Alexis Zorba who greatly influences his outlook on life. The narrator, whose name is not revealed, hires Zorba to superintend the workmen in his lignite mine in Crete.
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[edit] Plot summary
Zorba is described as "A living heart, a large voracious mouth, a great brute soul, not yet severed from mother earth". The novel can be perceived as a vaccine against metaphysical thinking and it describes the contrast introduced by Friedrich Nietzsche between the Apollonian and the Dionysian outlook on life. Apollo/the narrator represents the spirit of order and rationality, while Dionysus/Zorba represents the spirit of ecstatic, spontaneous will to live. It could be argued that the narrator does not make much of a struggle against the Dionysian spirit, however, the book is a tribute to life in this world, as was the philosophy of Nietzsche. Zorba befriends Boss, helping the latter to realise the beauty and simplicity of human life.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The story was later turned into a movie (see Zorba the Greek) as well as a ballet and a musical.
[edit] Quotes
- The meaning of the words, art, love, beauty, purity, passion, all this was made clear to me by the simplest of human words uttered by this workman.
- ...We must both have been hungry because we constantly led the conversation round to food.
"What is your favorite dish, grandad?" "All of them, my son. It's a great sin to say this is good and that is bad." "Why? Can't we make a choice?" "No, of course we can't." "Why not?" "Because there are people who are hungry." I was silent, ashamed. My heart had never been able to reach that height of nobility and compassion.
- “The aim of man and matter is to create joy, according to Zorba – others would say ‘to create spirit,’ but that comes to the same thing on another plane. But why? With what object? And when the body dissolves, does anything at all remain of what we have called the soul? Or does nothing remain, and does our unquenchable desire for immortality spring, not from the fact that we are immortal, but from the fact that during the short span of our life we are in the service of something immortal?”
"the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!"
- How simple a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple heart.
[edit] Links
- Book review in Time Magazine Apr. 20, 1953. [2]
