Word: zorba
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When Author Nikos Kazantzakis died last year at 74, he was known to U.S. readers mostly for his novel Zorba the Greek, a flashing testament to the proposition that every minute of life should be lived to the sensuous, sensual hilt. At least twice, reportedly, he failed to win the Nobel Prize by the narrowest of margins. By taking for his own the name of Homer's poem, by adopting Odysseus as his own hero, Kazantzakis has underlined the audacity of his undertaking. His 33,333 lines measure its vastness. But the poem's real boldness lies...
Rivalry with God. Many a devout reader may find this note jarringly impious and pessimistic. Kazantzakis is neither. Like Zorba, Odysseus exults in life, and even during his lowest moments he is seldom without gusto. There are times when he thinks he is better than God, times when he thinks that man ought to help God rather than the other way around. He never accepts defeat...
Hellion in Paradise. Zoologist Gerald Durrell was ten years old in 1934 when his family settled on the Ionian resort island of Corfu for what proved to be a five-year stay. Fending off a swarm of taxi drivers, the Durrells met their own personal "Zorba the Greek" when a swarthy islander named Spiro shouted to the beleaguered family, "Hoy! Whys donts you have someones who can talks your own language?" Neither Spiro nor the local hotel guide could quite grasp certain Anglo-Saxon eccentricities ("But Madame, what for you want a bathroom? Have...
...Captain Michales gnashed his teeth." With this flat opening sentence, Greek Novelist Nikos Kazantzakis introduces his third memorable novel to reach U.S. readers in as many years. A pagan demiurge named Zorba goat-footed his Dionysian way through Zorba the Greek. In The Greek Passion, the peasant Manolios reenacted the Crucifixion as it might have happened in a 1920 Anatolian village. Captain Michales of Freedom or Death is a citizen soldier-patriot burning to set late 19th century Crete free from Turkish rule. These three heroes have nothing in common but the Kazantzakis touch-a gift for catching...
...Greek Passion, by Nikos Kazantzakis. The temptation, betrayal and death of a Passion-play Christus; an impressive modern parable by the author of Zorba the Greek (TIME...