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A review by leadbelly
Zorba The Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
4.0
Wonderful book and Zorba is an astonishing literary creation, embodying an existentialist ethic of freedom and the self. The book is one of clashes between tradition and modernity, youth and age, instinct / experience and books / learning, physical and mental, masculine and feminine, wild and tame etc. Religion, whether it is the corrupt seclusion of the monastery, the philosophical, socialist Buddhism of the narrator, the villagers' brutal amoral orthodoxy [in both religious and sociological senses], the barely discussed but "suspect" Frankishness of Madame Hortense and the almost animist religion of Zorba is a key notion.
The gendered attitudes, perhaps reflecting the time when the book was set are pretty brutal and female characters are feared, pitied and condescended to. They are treated brutally whatever the situation. This element of the book made painful reading and I would almost wince when encountering these sentences. The treatment of the widow is painful and distressing in the extreme.
A great book though and highly recommended.
The gendered attitudes, perhaps reflecting the time when the book was set are pretty brutal and female characters are feared, pitied and condescended to. They are treated brutally whatever the situation. This element of the book made painful reading and I would almost wince when encountering these sentences. The treatment of the widow is painful and distressing in the extreme.
A great book though and highly recommended.