Report to Greco
was one of the final writings of Kazantzakis' life before died.
Kazantzakis's autobiographical novel Report to Greco was one of the last things he wrote before he died. It paints a vivid picture of his childhood in Crete, still occupied by the Turks, and then steadily grows into a spiritual quest that takes him to Italy, Jerusalem, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Russia and the Caucasus, and finally back to Crete again. At different times Nietzshe, Bergson, Buddha, Homer and Christ dominate as his spiritual masters.
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Author bio:
Nikos Kazantzakis finally settled in Antibes with his second wife, and died there from leukaemia in October 1957. He is buried at Herakleion, where the epitaph on his tomb reads: 'I hope
Category:
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in 1883 in Herakleion on the island of Crete. During the Cretan revolt of 1897 his family was sent to the island of Naxos. He worked first as a journalist and throughout a long career wrote several plays, travel journals and translations. His remarkable travels began in 1907 and there were few countries in Europe or Asia that he didn't visit. He studied Buddhism in Vienna and later belonged to a group of radical intellectuals in Berlin, where he began his great epic The Odyssey, which he completed in 1938.
He didn't start writing novels until he was almost 60 and completed his most famous work, Zorba the Greek, in 1946. Other novels include Freedom and Death (1953) and The Last Temptation (1954). Return to Greco was published in 1961.
Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:9780571195077
Edition No:1
Publisher:Faber
Imprint:Faber Paperback
Pub Date:July 2005
Page Extent:512
Format:Paperback - A format
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Subject:Autobiography: general
Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Report to Greco
Jane Rogers
5.0 out of 5 starsA unforgetable work of art!September 3, 2016Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseI read this book many years ago, and I was spiritually changed by it. I now want to read it a second time to review the mystery of it all.Nikos' search for more made his journey full because he was open to experience it ALL. He was a mystic individual.My schedule hasn't allowed me the pleasure to read it the second time yet, but I am definitely looking forward to it. I'll probably want to read it a third time.4 people found this helpful
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Bugs
5.0 out of 5 starsA Beautiful Autobiography of A Profound Thinker & Writer
May 15, 2005
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The spiritual travels to find himself and his inner soul are fascinating and the geography covered is extensive and with Kazantzakis' descriptions of the scenery, one feels that they are walking right along side him from Europe to Greece, the Mid East and beyond.
At one point, Kazantzakis is traveling with his friend Buddhaki to Mt. Athos to visit the many monasteries there and they come upon a Father Makarios. They muse on the ego, separation from God, etc., and when it is time to go, the good Father says, ["Good luck. God be with you." And a moment later, mockingly: "Regards to the world." "Regards to heaven," I retorted. "And tell God it's not our fault but his-because He made the world so beautiful."] (p 225)
On a trip to Jerusalem they meet a young man who ["...was passionately condemning the dishonesty and injustice of present-day economic and social life. The masses went hungry while the great and powerful piled up fortunes. Women sold themselves, priest did not believe, both heaven and the infernal pit were here on earth. The afterlife did not exist; here was where we had to find justice and happiness.... Cries rang out: "Yes, yes, you're right!" "Fire and axe!" Only one person attempted to object." ..."It was frightening. The purpose of trip was to worship the sweet, familiar face of God-so gentle, so tortured, so filled with hopes for life everlasting." ..."...we were carrying as a terrifying gift the seed of a new, dangerous, and as yet unformed cosmogony."] (p 245)
Later and on the road to the Dead Sea, "I had found it necessary to purge my bowels and expel the demons inside me-wolves, monkeys, women; minor virtues, minor joys, successes-so that I could remain simply an upright flame directed toward heaven. Now that I was a man, what was I doing but enacting what I had so ardently desired as a child in the courtyard of our family home! A person is only born once; I would never have another chance!" (p 252)
*Kazantzakis begins to summarize his spiritual journey with, "Our journey to the fatal intellectual Golgotha thus becomes more loaded with responsibility because now, looking at the Cretans, we know that if we fail to become human, the fault is ours, ours alone. For this lofty species-man-exists, he made his appearance on earth, and there is no longer any justification whatever for our deterioration and cowardice." (p 441)*
At the end is, "Just then-as fate was in a mood to play games-I made the acquaintance of an elderly mineworker named Alexis Zorba." (Zorba the Greek). This leads Kazantzakis to an introductory chapter on Zorba wherein he states, "My life's greatest benefactors have been journeys and dreams. Very few people, living or dead, have aided my struggle. If, however, I wished to designate which people left their traces imbedded most deeply in my soul, I would perhaps designate Homer, Buddha, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Zorba."
(p 445)
Kazantzakis was a prolific writer with incredible insight and wisdom and some of his best known works are: "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Zorba the Greek". Start in on any book, though, and one will most likely feel compelled to read them all!
18 people found this helpful
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Daniel Scalph
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat, thoughtful novel
April 11, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This is the fourth Kazantzakis novel I've read, and each time I read one it becomes my new favorite of his. The Fratricides is no exception. If you are at all familiar with his writing but have not picked up this novel, I recommend you do so. If you are unfamiliar with his writing, I suggest starting with Zorba the Greek or this novel before tackling the more complicated books like his Odyssey sequel or The Last Temptation of Christ. I will say that the ending of the Fratricides is somewhat sudden, and depending on the reader's worldview could be seen as extremely nihilistic, or alternatively as hopeful.
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a great Book
March 24, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Get it and read a beautiful set of concepts, like:
“Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for honorable sanctity. Hero together with “ethics”: such is mankind's supreme model.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco.
And from an inscription on his tombstone. “I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis
But these ideas are as strange as is the so called "American Democracy', which could not be farther from the true sense of Periclean Democracy.
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Jane M. Wilder
5.0 out of 5 starsMy favorite writer
October 15, 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
A friend of mine who is a serious writer told me that Nikos Kazantzakis is her absolute favorite writer. Report to Greco wasn't in our local library and I had to have it. I have savored every chapter, made notes and gone back to read it again. It's necessary to read this book when one's brain is awake or miss something wonderful. This is the story of a dedicated man's search for his soul through travel to sacred places and meeting challenging people and ideas.
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Jennifer Wilson
4.0 out of 5 starsWell written and gained understanding
January 11, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Required reading but I ended up enjoying the book. Very sad content but it helped me gain a greater understanding of the Greek civil war and fight against communism.
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Sophia
5.0 out of 5 starsAwesome style and glimpse into the Greek soul
July 23, 2015
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Kazantzakis has the primal spirit of a god, the power of a savage, and the lyricism of a poet. Awesome style and glimpse into the Greek soul...
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Juliette Balabanian
5.0 out of 5 starsA very Greek book
February 16, 2017
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Brilliant for Greeks but I wonder if those not familiar with the nuances of Greek culture and the Orthodox religion could feel the passion in this book.
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Vicenta Cobo
5.0 out of 5 starsA golden fruit
January 24, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
A masterpiece, the golden fruit of a life of awakening, passion and exploration. This book is a treasure of knowledge and high conscience. A great adventure for the mind and spirit.
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P. N. Bakalos
4.0 out of 5 starsGreat, except for near the end of it
February 26, 2012
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I liked most of this book alot. Thought provoking and vivid telling of his experiences from child through adult. But the epilogue gets a little out there for me. It was very hard to stay with it and figure out what the hell he is really talking about for several pages near the end. A little over my head there. But hey, that's me...i'm not a "genius" like the reviewer on the back cover said he was.
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Nov 02, 2010Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: biography, fiction, literature, greece, 20th-century
Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο = Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis
Report to Greco is a fictionalized account of Greek philosopher and writer Nikos Kazantzakis’s own life, a sort of intellectual autobiography that leads readers through his wide-ranging observations on everything from the Hegelian dialectic to the nature of human existence, all framed as a report to the Spanish Renaissance painter El Greco. The assuredness of Kazantzakis’s prose and the nimbleness of his thinking as he grapples with life’s essential questions—who are we, and how should we be in the world?—will inspire awe and more than a little reflection from readers seeking to answer these questions for themselves. Originally published: 1961.
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May 06, 2011Peycho Kanev rated it it was amazing
What a writer! It is my fault that I discovered him just now, but I will read all of his work.
This is not a memoir or auto-biography as such, but something much deeper, much profound and spiritual. At times, the Christian and the spiritual preaching are too much for me, but his prose-poetry style clears it’s all.
And you have to visit Greece at least once to feel what he is talking about! The magic of this country will get you by the throat after you sink deep in his words.
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Aug 15, 2011PGR Nair rated it it was amazing
Shelves: favourites
Report to Greco
Vienna 1921. Closeted inside an apartment there, my favourite is deeply engrossed in writing a play on "Buddha'. He had been grooming himself into a state of ascetic discipline for some time to write this play. Cut off from the enticing city outside, he listened to the voice of this new master sitting inside him - " Desire is flame, love is flame, virtue, hope ,"I" and "you", heaven and hell are flames. One thing and one thing only is light: - the renouncement of flame". His mind was like a yellow heliotrope and Buddha the sun. Slowly, the writer was getting submerged in Buddha.
When he finished the play, he felt that he had paved a new road to salvation. Now he had no fear as no desire could conquer him. He slowly opened the window of his apartment. Leaning out of the window he looked at the men, women, cars, groceries, fruits and drinks on the street outside. He then went to the street outside to mingle with that wave of crowd and to breathe the city. He walked to the nearby movie theatre to see what was going on there. The movie appeared boring. Next to him sat a girl and he could smell her cinnamon breath. From time to time her knee touched him. He shuddered, but he did not draw away. In that semi darkness, he could see her smiling glance. He got up to leave and she followed him. Strangely, he struck up a conversation with her and soon they were in a park outside. It was summer and the night was sweet as honey. The moon shone above and the song of a nightingale hidden deep in the lilacs could be heard.
"Frieda, Will you spent night with me ". These terrible words escaped from his lips.
"Not tonight. I will come Tomorrow", the girl replied
He came back to his apartment. Something terrible suddenly happened to him. His face started swelling and he heard the blood rushing to his head. His soul had become enraged. Little by little, his lips, cheeks and forehead bloated into a big mass. Stumbling along the room, he went to look at the mirror and he was aghast with his horribly disfigured face. His eyes were like two barely visible slits.
The next day he remembered his promise to the girl Frieda. He called the chambermaid and gave her a telegram to be sent to Frieda- "Don't come today, Come tomorrow". A day went by, two, three and a week had passed with no improvement in his illness. Afraid that the girl might come, he kept on sending her the telegram- "Don't come today, come tomorrow". Finally he could not stand it any longer and fixed an appointment with Dr. William Stekel, the renowned professor of psychology and disciple of Sigmund Freud.
The professor began to hear his confession. He related his life history, the events in Vienna, his search for salvation in Buddha. At the end, the professor burst into a shrill, hysterical laughter and said -"Enough, Enough!, the professor laughed a bit sarcastically and continued, “This disease you are suffering is called "Ascetics' disease" and it is extremely rare in our times, because what body, today, obeys the soul?. In ancient times, the saints who stayed in Theban deserts used to run to the nearest city when they felt compelled to sleep with a woman. Just as they reached the city, their face used to turn as revolting just as yours. With such a face they could not face any woman. So they ran back to their hermitage in desert thanking God for delivering them from sin. You have the same situation. You will be rid of the mask glued to your face only if you leave this city".
My writer returned home. He did not believe it. Scientific fairy tales, he said to himself. He waited another two weeks. The disease showed no sign of parting. Finally, one morning he packed his suitcase and headed to the railway station to leave Vienna. The city was awakening. The sun had come down to the streets. He was in a fine mood and he felt weightless as he walked. He could move his eyes now. A cool breeze caressed his face like a compassionate hand. He could feel the swelling subsiding. When he reached the station, he took out his hand mirror and uttered a cry of joy. He had regained his normal face. The disease was gone.
In a country like India, where spiritual experience is full of sham shading, this experience of a spiritual adventurist is profound and authentic. The man who underwent this spiritual adventure was the literary giant of Modern Greece and one of the greatest novelists of the last century- Nikos Kazantzakis. This is not only the opinion of a humble admirer like me but also of great men like Albert Schweitzer, Jawaharlal Nehru and great writers like Thomas Mann and Albert Camus. (In 1957 when Camus received Noble prize, Kazantzakis was slated to win. The Academy thought he fostered communist ideologies and so he lost the prize by one vote. A month later Camus wrote a graceful letter stating that Kazantzakis had deserved the Nobel 'a hundred times more' than himself .)
There are certain writers who affect the very marrow of our being from the first reading itself. Like good wine, years have only matured my profound appreciation of this writer. No writer of the last century has experienced the interminable struggle between the flesh and the spirit as Kazantzakis. As a result, every molecule of his writing carries the dye of his flesh and blood.
Kazantzakis was born in Crete, an island that is now part of Greece but was once a Turkish colony. During the Cretan revolt of 1897, his family moved to Greece. He studied law in Athens and in 1907 he went to study under the great philosopher Henri Bergson, who influenced his writing considerably. Bergson's 'Elan vital'-the life force that can conquer matter became his motif in many of his astonishingly beautiful Novels like- Zorba the Greek, Greek Passion (I personally rank it as one the ten greatest novels of Twentieth century) , Freedom or Death, Last temptation of Christ and his famous autobiography "Report to Greco", from which I have summarized the above incident. In 1945, he married his lifetime companion and Greek intellectual, Helen Kazantzakis. Helen has incidentally written a famous biography about Mahatma Gandhi.
Kazantzakis was a highly religious man but he did not belong to any religion. He imbibed many ideologies like socialism and communism but never lifted any flag. The Greek Orthodox Church excommunicated him as he sought his own Christ in his famous Novel "Last Temptation'. When he died on October, 1957 due to an Asian Flue he contracted in a clinic in Germany, his body was not allowed a burial in Greek soil. He came to sleep beside his Grandfather in his birthplace Herakleion in Crete. His epitaph is a summation of his ideals- "I hope for Nothing, I fear nothing, I am free".
There is another fascinating incident that Kazantzakis mentions at the beginning of his autobiographical novel 'Report to Greco'. It is about his imaginary encounter with another great Cretan El Greco, the famous painter. He imagines himself being led up to the summit of 'God-trodden Sinai'. Suddenly he senses that the God with whom he has wrestled all his life is about to appear for a final reckoning. He turns, 'with a shudder'. But-
"It was not Jehovah, it was you, grandfather, from the beloved soil of Crete. You stood there before me, a stern nobleman, with your small snow-white goatee, dry compressed lips, your ecstatic glance so filled with flames and wings. And roots of thyme were tangled in your hair. You looked at me, and as you looked at me I felt that this world was a cloud charged with thunderbolts and wind, man's soul a cloud charged with thunderbolts and wings, that God puffs above them, and that salvation does not exist."
Yet Greco's message is not that 'salvation does not exist'. When Kazantzakis beseeches him for a command, Greco answers- "Reach what you can, child." But this does not satisfy him. He asks again. '"Grandfather give me a more difficult, more Cretan command." ' Now Greco vanishes, but 'a cry was left on Sinai's peak, an upright cry full of command, and the air trembled: "Reach what you cannot!"
'Reach what you cannot' can be a fine motto for every one of us. Unfortunately, we fail to transcend and realize our full potential in our daily drudgery for survival. We become slaves to the taverns of hope and cellars of fear in the path of our life. We have to smash boundaries, deny whatever our daily eyes see, rivet our eyes on our mission, ascend without descend and die every moment to give birth to the impossible. That alone gives a human meaning to our superhuman struggle.
May you have the courage to liberate yourself from the manacles of fear and forge ahead with full steam to "Reach what you cannot".
Read this book and get transformed yourself
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Feb 15, 2008Ade Bailey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: biography-autobiography, fiction
A stunning autoiography of the Greek hero. In the best tradition of autobiography, about a journey shorn of irrelevant personal history. A breathtaking trip through his spiritual odyssey from Christianity, through Nietzche, Buddhism, Communism and more back to the point where old he has thickened into youth. Entelechy.
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Feb 21, 2015Sara Nasser rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: favs, سير-مذكرات, في-مكتبتي
سيرة قديس يبحث عن الله، الجمال، المعرفة.
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Feb 05, 2008Nicole rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: fiction
Reading Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel Report To Greco in the back room of the store. The world begins to get loud. The prologue begins. “I collect my tools:
sight
smell
touch
taste
hearing
intellect
Night has fallen, the day’s work is done. I return like a mole to my home, the ground. Not because I am tired and cannot work. I am not tired. But the sun has set.”
Tools are what I get from people. Sometimes I gain tools from living in the world and other times my tools are garnered through the living of others. Sometimes I’m working on being with people and other times I’m working on being with myself. Right now I am glad to have chosen to be with Kazantzakis’ novel because his struggle to reconcile the duality of his ancestors/nature within himself transfers an ease to my own struggling mind. Not a sedentary ease, but one that motivates me to figure out how to communicate/connect in better ways with what I desire, my Golgotha. People call for an end to their struggles; I hope to love mine. Because I can see that struggle will not cease in my world; it’s too rambunctious, too willful, too imaginary.
****
I got extremely caught up in this epic struggle, a look at the author’s life with all the embellishes and harsh critiques one has of one’s self. At first, I was a bit surprised at my unflagging interest because of the book’s heavy religious discussions, but it was more of a metaphysical questioning than an attempt to settle into any one religion. Kazantzakis journeys through Christianity, Nietzsche, Buddha, Lenin, Zorba, and many others, never reaching a summit (it’s okay to not reach the summit we find out), only stopped by death.
Some excerpts that I had to write down, for its’ look or for its’ meat. Here are a few; I’ll spare you the lengthy ones.
“And first of all I’m going to have it out with Michelangelo. The other day I saw a small copy of the Last Judgment he painted at Rome. I don’t like it.”
“The Church of Christ in the state to which the clergy had brought it suddenly seemed to me an enclosure where thousands of panic-stricken sheep bleat away night and day, leaning one against the other and stretching out their necks to lick the hand and knife that are slaughtering them.”
“Whoever says salvation exists is a slave, because he keeps weighing each of his words and deeds at every moment. ‘Will I go to heaven or to hell?’…How can a soul that hopes be free? Whoever hopes is afraid both of his life and the life to come; he hangs indecisively in the air and waits for luck or God’s mercy.”
“We ascended because the very act of ascending, for us, was happiness, salvation, and paradise.”
Okay, I’ll stop there, but I feel so good at having been inspired to think so much about the beliefs that I hold as an individual that it is hard to stop mulling it over. I don’t necessarily agree with the above or other statements although I feel I have been shown so many strong truths. Much better than a typically plot driven story, more interactive. More pertinent. Where he goes does not matter so much as what he synthesizes in his head. The struggle.(less)
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Aug 16, 2011Hadrian rated it it was amazing
Shelves: biography-memoir, fiction
A raw (slightly unfinished), profound, autobiographical novel. Beautiful genuine searching about how to live. I know I am a mere adolescent philosophical dabbler, but Kazantzakis really speaks to me. Even his moments of profound religiosity are beautiful, in a way.
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· 2,433 ratings · 223 reviews
Jul 23, 2008Zack Shaeffer rated it really liked it
Recommended to Zack by: Bob McKlennan
It is billed as a "spiritual autobiography" which may appeal to those who took Prof. Pierce's PTS class with me in the Spring. The book recounts Kazantzakis' (author of Zorba the Greek, and The Last Temptation of Christ) life story from childhood on Crete to travels all over the Mediterranean and Europe, in the form of a deathbed report to one of his heroes, the Spanish Renaissance Cretan-expat painter known as "El Greco". Follow the development of Kazantzakis' life philosophy from ardent Orthodox Christianity, to Neitzsche, to Buddha, to Lenin, to his final stop at "the Cretan Glance". I have a friend who has changed his life philosophy and belief system pretty dramatically more than once, and throws himself headlong, passionately and absolutely, into every change, rejecting the old with vehemence and embracing the new with uncompromising alacrity. Kazantzakis is like that, but able to look back with the better clarity of age to see these changes as important stages along the way. I am told the Greeks are passionate people, and he clearly displays this. I haven't seen so many exclamation points since reading eighth grade essays, which is not a comment against Kazantzakis' writing style, but a sign of his enthusiasm. If travelogue as introspective quest for maturity and self-knowledge appeals to you, this is worth checking out. Psychologically, it can be fascinating. You might find it a bit lugubrious if you like action more than self-exploration, however. Kazantzakis died at 74 in 1957, the year he lost the Nobel Prize by one vote, and his opinions about Europe and "the race" are dated accordingly, and certainly not P.C. by today's standards. While that element isn't constant, it comes up often enough. And how did he fail to mention his wife until the epilogue? Read only if you can get past his occasional ethno- and male-centrism to enjoy the quest of a robust soul. (less)
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May 05, 2012Antonia rated it it was amazing
Shelves: very-special
I am entirely in love with Nikos Kazantzakis and this book was a great journey full of passion and strong feelings. Re-discovering Greece through his words, fears, longings and the sinuous paths of his soul is a marvelous experience. This is a book of splendors and profound thought, book of incomparable delicacy and form. "Report to El Greco" is of those books that cannot be recommended. One has to dive deep into himself to seek desire to read it. Only then the book can be truly appreciated.
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Jun 17, 2017Alex rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: european-literature
Finally ! This was a hard one. i found myself to have similar ideas with Kazantzakis about life, death, God, Devil and so on. this is a book of ideas, with a bit of something happening in between. his real novels are a better option to dive into Nazantzakis head.
The ideas, the constant fight between "God exists? What is God? Where is God?" and "God exists. God is. god is here/there/everywhere" is remainded on every page / every 3-4 pages.
As said, this is supposed to be an autobiographic novel. kazantzakis did great things in his life, but I read them all on wikipedia. in this book you are at ons moment - OMG, just do something with your life, stop melodramating, stop dreaming. do something. this is what actually one of his female encounters in Berlin told him. and I thought she couldn't be more right.
Kazantzakis is obsessed with life, death, the big questions. If you want an answer, of course you won't be provided with any. his inner fights are so common, we all experience them, his questions, his Yes-s and No-s. kazantzakis didn't try to teach us a lesson, there is so condescension in his writing. he is a man looking for some answers.
Maybe the answer is in the simple things of life. the life on Crete is so idyllic in its simplicity. the life in the desert as well. But Crete is described with so much love, i wanted to be there, to sit on the beach, watch the sun and the sea, eat some grapes and just be. i think this is what this book is all about. Especially in the complicated and highly technological nowadays, it gives simplicity and returning to the really great things, to nature, a new meaning.
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