Zorba the Greek is a picaresque novel by Nikos Kazantzakis that supposedly is based on a real man that Kazantzakis knew.\u00a0 Zorba is an old Greek working man who insinuates himself into the journey of a young well-to-do intellectual Greek fellow who is travelling to Crete to take up ownership of a coal mine there.\u00a0 Their business venture and various adventures together are the story line of the book.\u00a0 But the story is the apprenticeship of the bookish young man under the tutelage of Zorba.\u00a0 And the craft he is learning is how to be a free man.<\/p>\n
Kazantzakis was fascinated by philosophy and the spiritual life of the modern world.\u00a0 Being an atheist, he was always searching for meaning and truth.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read a number of his books.\u00a0 None of them speak to me except Zorba.\u00a0 And the character in Zorba the Greek that represents Kazantzakis, the young intellectual, I do not find interesting.\u00a0 Zorba is the whole story.\u00a0 When he leaves the scene, I lose interest.<\/p>\n
Zorba is a larger than life character that within the confines of his workingman\u2019s world has lived many of the most intense experiences.\u00a0 He has been a guerilla warrior in the Greek wars against the Turks and the Bulgarians.\u00a0 He has been a musician, a craftsman, a laborer, a business man and an engineer.\u00a0 And he has had a life-long career as a Casanova.\u00a0 But at the basis of Zorba\u2019s personality is his conviction that the only real wealth a man has is his free will.\u00a0 And that is what he tries to teach the young intellectual.\u00a0 A man is never free until he can throw away everything he has to follow a whim.\u00a0 If he can\u2019t do that, then he is a slave to whatever things hold him back.\u00a0 And he includes wealth, family, patriotism and fear in that category.<\/p>\n
Whether Zorba\u2019s beliefs are consistent or even logical I\u2019ll put aside.\u00a0 The book has many moments that are comical, moving, thought provoking or some combination of the above.\u00a0 The details of Cretan peasant life are picturesque but if accurate point to a primitive existence that verges on the barbaric.\u00a0 But this primal landscape provides scope for the larger than life exploits of Zorba.<\/p>\n
And no matter how things turn out, no matter how fate conspires against Zorba, he is completely undaunted.\u00a0 He moves forward and latches onto the next day and the people and things around him and puts together some new mad plan to conquer the world, or at least his world.\u00a0 And that is the greatest charm of the book.\u00a0 To meet a man who has an unquenchable appetite for life.\u00a0 To meet someone who loves life at the visceral level.\u00a0 Who sees everything as if for the first time.\u00a0 Sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches things as if he were the first man in the world to do so.\u00a0 That is the charm if you can imagine it. \u00a0That\u2019s what makes it a perfect summer book for me.\u00a0 At least the parts with Zorba in center stage.<\/p>\n
So how does the apprenticeship go?\u00a0 Well the young man will never be Zorba and at the end of the book he fails the test that Zorba gives him.\u00a0 But without a doubt his life has been enriched and his outlook has been broadened by knowing and surviving this catastrophic character.<\/p>\n
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Zorba the Greek is a picaresque novel by Nikos Kazantzakis that supposedly is based on a real man that Kazantzakis knew.\u00a0 Zorba is an old<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237],"tags":[778,945,944],"class_list":["post-2577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","tag-greeks","tag-nikos-kazantzakis","tag-zorba-the-greek"],"yoast_head":"\n