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A review by yorgos_a
Βίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά by Nikos Kazantzakis, Νίκος Καζαντζάκης
3.0
Despite its title, this book is about an insufferable posh boy (the writer) with a dishonest aversion towards the high intellect and a very honest aversion towards women. Together with his object of desire (Zorbas) - a hypermasculine, rude, sturdy older man - he exploits the human and natural resources of Crete for his personal benefit as he vomits banalities about the true meaning of life.
Throughout the book, we see time and again our volcel protagonist pry upon his primitive companion and exalt him for enjoying life in a way he could never. You see, the writer is a self-proclaimed intellectual and intellectuals do not indulge in earthly pleasures – at least not without beating themselves hard afterwards. The writer is ironically a Buddhist.
This book is equal parts homoerotic and misogynistic.
Regarding the former, I am astonished at how little readers talk about the sexual tension between the main two characters. The writer won’t miss an opportunity to provide detailed descriptions of Zorbas’s endearingly appalling appearance (hairy ears all over the text), his longing to meet with him, their embraces in life-threatening situations… The eventual consummation of their relationship occurs in one of the final chapters - with masterful ambiguity of course.
Was Kazantzakis trying to tell the love story between two men? I am not sure, and I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on the matter. Regardless, this romance would be fine had it not been put into effect at the expense of women and effeminate men.
The cruel misogyny of this book is deeply upsetting and distracting. The writer is astonishingly resourceful when it comes to unflattering descriptions of women’s appearance, attitudes, and motivations. He is particularly unpardoning to aging women – to him, aging (and the unattractiveness that comes with it) is almost a moral failure, a character flaw.
Kazantzakis’s mistreatment of female characters culminates when a young woman, whose name we never learn as she’s only referred to as the Widow, gets lynched and severed in front of a Church and for some reason this incident is not even the focus of the chapter it takes place in. Everybody moves on very quickly and soon we’re back to the tongue-in-cheek account of our protagonists’ mischiefs.
Naturally, homophobia cannot be absent from a book so overtly misogynistic. Here, Zorbas is doing the heavy lifting of treating homosexuality - especially the effeminate and flamboyant subtype - as moral bankruptcy (in the case of sodomite monks for instance) or at least as an opportunity for mockery and disdain. Our protagonists may be drooling over each other throughout the entire book, but they are clearly not like those other f*ggots.
Homoeroticism and misogyny blend nicely in the plot: by the end of the book, Kazantzakis covenienly kills both Madame Hortense (Zorba’s heterosexual love interest) and the Widow (the writer’s heterosexual love interest), so that the two protagonists have no one but each other.
I could keep ranting about other problematic themes of the book (such as the patronizing depiction of Zorba’s love for hard manual work as a virtue), but I’ll leave that for another review.
For now, I will just say that this book is deeply depressing because, even though this is supposed to be a feel-good book about seizing the day, goodness doesn’t win at the end. And I am not sure whether this is by design. Rather, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth as I am realizing that almost 90 years later very little has changed in the collective Greek soul.
I wanted to like this book, mainly because Kazantzakis is deeply revered in my native Greece, but in 2022, this is a very difficult task. Every year, tens of women are murdered by their partners in Greece and yet the society is still triggered by the word femicide. Queer kids are victimized by relentless bullying and in many occasions are killed or led to taking their own lives. And I can’t help thinking that books like this one, having reached the status of essential reading, may be perpetuating dangerous stereotypes that make the life of so many of us in Greece miserable.
It's time we read Kazantzakis critically.
Throughout the book, we see time and again our volcel protagonist pry upon his primitive companion and exalt him for enjoying life in a way he could never. You see, the writer is a self-proclaimed intellectual and intellectuals do not indulge in earthly pleasures – at least not without beating themselves hard afterwards. The writer is ironically a Buddhist.
This book is equal parts homoerotic and misogynistic.
Regarding the former, I am astonished at how little readers talk about the sexual tension between the main two characters. The writer won’t miss an opportunity to provide detailed descriptions of Zorbas’s endearingly appalling appearance (hairy ears all over the text), his longing to meet with him, their embraces in life-threatening situations… The eventual consummation of their relationship occurs in one of the final chapters - with masterful ambiguity of course.
Was Kazantzakis trying to tell the love story between two men? I am not sure, and I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on the matter. Regardless, this romance would be fine had it not been put into effect at the expense of women and effeminate men.
The cruel misogyny of this book is deeply upsetting and distracting. The writer is astonishingly resourceful when it comes to unflattering descriptions of women’s appearance, attitudes, and motivations. He is particularly unpardoning to aging women – to him, aging (and the unattractiveness that comes with it) is almost a moral failure, a character flaw.
Kazantzakis’s mistreatment of female characters culminates when a young woman, whose name we never learn as she’s only referred to as the Widow, gets lynched and severed in front of a Church and for some reason this incident is not even the focus of the chapter it takes place in. Everybody moves on very quickly and soon we’re back to the tongue-in-cheek account of our protagonists’ mischiefs.
Naturally, homophobia cannot be absent from a book so overtly misogynistic. Here, Zorbas is doing the heavy lifting of treating homosexuality - especially the effeminate and flamboyant subtype - as moral bankruptcy (in the case of sodomite monks for instance) or at least as an opportunity for mockery and disdain. Our protagonists may be drooling over each other throughout the entire book, but they are clearly not like those other f*ggots.
Homoeroticism and misogyny blend nicely in the plot: by the end of the book, Kazantzakis covenienly kills both Madame Hortense (Zorba’s heterosexual love interest) and the Widow (the writer’s heterosexual love interest), so that the two protagonists have no one but each other.
I could keep ranting about other problematic themes of the book (such as the patronizing depiction of Zorba’s love for hard manual work as a virtue), but I’ll leave that for another review.
For now, I will just say that this book is deeply depressing because, even though this is supposed to be a feel-good book about seizing the day, goodness doesn’t win at the end. And I am not sure whether this is by design. Rather, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth as I am realizing that almost 90 years later very little has changed in the collective Greek soul.
I wanted to like this book, mainly because Kazantzakis is deeply revered in my native Greece, but in 2022, this is a very difficult task. Every year, tens of women are murdered by their partners in Greece and yet the society is still triggered by the word femicide. Queer kids are victimized by relentless bullying and in many occasions are killed or led to taking their own lives. And I can’t help thinking that books like this one, having reached the status of essential reading, may be perpetuating dangerous stereotypes that make the life of so many of us in Greece miserable.
It's time we read Kazantzakis critically.