Word: grecos
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...like Matthew Arnold and fictional figures like Herzog? For one thing, he achieves nobility by immersing himself in a noble tradition. The Consul in Under the Volcano, for example, may be one of the many examples of a man "alienated" from society but the hero of Report to Greco is a descendant of generations of proud Cretans and a son of the ancient island of Crete. It is no accident that the author begins the prologue with Cretan soil in his hand and ends it by addressing his grand-father...
...place myself soldier-like before the general, and make Report to Greco. For Greco is kneaded from the same Cretan soil as 1, and is able to understand me better than all the strivers of past and present...
Kazantzakis was, then, born of a race and land which encouraged him to live on a cosmic scale. And he eagerly accepted this scale, as his introduction to Report to Greco shows. Once one understands this, one can accept seeming pompousness which would otherwise be intolerable. Kazantzakis can use phrases like "my soul began to tremble" because Kazantzakis lived in these terms...
...must also reject the world-view from which the passion-flowers spring. If one must accept the world-view, or at least offer a "willing suspension of disbelief" to Kazantzakis's peculiar world, in order to accept the style. Kazantzakis himself raises this problem in Report to Greco...
Report to Greco clarifies all of Kazantzakis's writing in quite a different way. One realizes how much of the material in his early novels was autobiographical, particularly if one extends the term "autobiographical" to the life of the spirit...