Where literature is concerned, regardless of the medium, there are three types of authors (for me). There are those who end up in the bargain bin, those who don’t pay attention to language or structure (thereby ruining a reader’s rhythm by paying it no respect) and those whose works will never sit in a bargain bin. Nikos Kazantzakis falls into the latter. He’s in my literary toplist, and I think that few authors examine the human existential issues in the manner that he did. A lot of works out there today, due the marketing of such works (as well as authors), are transient. Many of today’s popular authors rarely discuss the struggles they often write about, and those who do manage to a book deal hardly dare to reveal the struggles along the way - doesn’t make for good press, and many care more about their image.“Life is different here, to live here you have to struggle, because there are three and a half million people here struggling for their living. I visited a few people I had introductions for, and tried to find a job so as not to be a burden on father any more. But so far I have not succeeded in doing anything, though they did make me promises. In any case I have enough money to live on for all of October and November. In the meantime I'll go to university and when I learn the language fluently I won't have anything to fear.” Nikos Kazantzakis (from a letter to his parents, discussing his life in Paris shortly after his arrival)
Born in Crete in 1883, during a time of uprisings to break Ottoman rule within the island, he came from an average household and wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His early life is filled with stopovers. In 1898 he was sent to school on the island of Naxos to escape the rebellions on the island of Crete, and it was here that he began his education at a school run by French monks, which inspired his love of the French language.
In 1902 he finished his secondary education in Irakleion, and then moved to Athens to study law. Writing came to Kazantzakis easily. Before he commenced his law degree he published an essay, and his first novel “Serpent and Lily” (1907). A year later his play, “Day is Breaking” won a drama prize in Athens, became a production and the first controversy for Kazantzakis before moving ahead to postgraduate study while working as a journalist (and being inducted as a Freemason). No stranger to controversy, he lived in Athens (1910) with the woman that was to be his first wife, Galatea Alexiou, while earning a living as a translator. At this point, Kazantzakis was fluent in Greek, French, German, English and Classical Greek. In 1919 Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos appointed him as the Director General of Social Welfare; Kazantzakis was responsible for the repatriation of more than a hundred thousand Pontian Greek refugees from the Caucasus region. It was while overseeing this, that Kazantzakis drew inspiration for his novel Christ Recrucified. This period heralded Kazantzakis own odyssey, and much like Odysseus, it saw him traveling around the world.
He gave literature characters who weren’t far removed from everyday life; each facing their own existential struggles while observing the larger machine of the world at work and this can also relate to the authors own spiritual and existential struggles that latched onto him early on in life. The world probably knows him best through his work Zorba the Greek, which has also become a film classic starring Anthony Quinn as Alexi Zorbas, an old Greek who teaches a younger foreigner how to live life, and take it as it unfolds or not to sweat the small stuff.
Regardless of Kazantzakis’ own struggles, he constructed a body of work that almost earned him a Nobel Prize in literature only to lose by one vote. Albert Camus, the winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature (1957) is quoted as saying that Kazantzakis deserved it more. This can be true, because no other work portraying Jesus Christ dared explore the existential aspect of Christ’s life. Decades after the publication of this book, after Martin Scorcese’s decision to adapt the novel to film, many religious groups picketed cinemas around the world protesting over the film that depicted Christ as a man. 1988 was an interesting year for the onset of Christian protest (and had the protesters actually read the author's introduction to the novel, they'd see his deep admiration for Christ, but it's all about shoot first, ask questions later). Thus Kazantzakis’s stories have a timeless quality, in that they can still evoke social debate. As a result of The Last Temptation, Kazantzakis was excommunicated from the Eastern Orthodox Church (due to the ‘heretical’ content of the book), and there were other behind the scenes events that may swayed the Nobel vote. More importantly, Kazantzakis’ reaction to the churches (Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholic Church) condemning this novel was to send a telegram to the Vatican to say the following, quoting Tertullian:“Ad tuum, Domine, tribunal appello” - I lodge my appeal at your tribunal, Lord.
Unlike many of today’s supposedly literary ‘wunderkind’ who can earn five figure sums before their novels are printed (who hardly scratch the surface of the human struggle), Nikos found it difficult to make a living out of writing due to the fact that there wasn’t a market for Greek writers and because he wrote in demotic Greek, his works gained a controversial quality. This inability to earn a living from writing, or the struggle within, led him to write a lot more by way of translating other works, working as a journalist and even writing travel literature based countries he traveled to ( Japan, China, Italy, Egypt, England), which also fed into the quality of his literature so his novels, even though translated to English, don’t lose much in the translation.
When Kazantzakis died in 1957, aged 74 his body was transferred to Athens, the Greek Orthodox Church refused to permit it to lie in state, the body was transferred to Irakleion, Crete where people were able to pay their last respects to the man who chose "Δεν ελπίζω τίποτε. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτε. Είμαι λεύτερος" ( I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free), for his epitaph.
As you can see, it takes a lot of space to explore Nikos Kazantzakis and I’m not anywhere near half done or a quarter done, but I'll leave it here because this isn't an academic essay, it's an informal personal exploration as to how this person's work, and personal stance, has influenced me over nearly two decades.
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