Recently, I read Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. Amazing that I've gone so long without reading that novel. I have mixed feelings about it. Alexi Zorba is no doubt a great fictional character. And the story keeps you turning the pages. The problems come when we see the attractive widow. The narrator, the boss, is attracted to her because she's so beautiful. The villagers hate her because...because of what? Because supposedly she doesn't attach herself to any of the free village men. She stays aloof from them. Supposedly, that brings disgrace on the village. She eventually has an assignation with the narrator, which triggers the horrible scene of her death. Her murder comes at the hands of an angry father whose son killed himself for being rejected by the widow. Not only does he kill her, but he cuts her head off in front of the baying villagers. Zorba, who had shown up in time to defend her and fight off her attackers, is taken unawares and unable to save her.
None of it makes sense to me. That a widow would be despised for not taking a man -- where does that happen? In Greece? If anything, such a church-going widow would be admired. Would she be blamed for causing the suicide of a young man? Perhaps, but only by the insanely envious. None of it would rise to the status of a deserved, justifiable murder, as the villagers feel in the book.
3 comments:
This quote below from the novel should help you or any reader understand the description of the the events surrounding the widow. First Kazantzakis is no faithful Orthodox Christian. Zorba is his alter ego. Zorba thinks of himself as a pagan god. In the book he says, God is "just like me. Only bigger, crazier. And immortal. God enjoys himself, kills, commits injustice, makes love, works, hunts uncatchable birds just like me".
So Kazantzakis offers his values thru the POV of Zorba.
I'm glad you've written, Eleni. Thank you. The Church certainly does not get depicted in a friendly way in Zorba the Greek. Yet, Kazantzakis frequently writes about and questions God in his works. I haven't read the Last Temptation in decades, but I recall it was a pretty powerful examination of the human Christ and his torments. I'm unfamiliar with the details of the rift that ultimately caused the Greek church to anathematize Kazantzakis. You're welcome to point to information on that. Regarding Zorba, specifically, and the poor widow, briefly:
- I would say Zorba the character represents some part of Kazantzakis's obsessions with his own and the Greek national character, but I don't see Zorba as his alter ego. Zorba expresses only parts of Kazantzakis. After their adventures together are done, the author makes no attempt to visit or see Zorba again in his lifetime.
- Zorba voices very common feelings among Greeks, even church-going Greeks. In all my time in Greece, I've frequently heard denunciations of priests, monks, and the hierarchy, even among the most observant.
- It is Zorba who risks his life and defends the widow (unsuccessfully).
- Everything Zorba touches collapses -- like the logging scheme disaster at the end.
My original point is that the widow's death seems like a bizarre unexplained incident.
As for Zorba being Kazantzakis' alter ego...I meant it in terms of Zorba's inability or perhaps unwillingness to come to terms which his identity: faith, morality, his sense of self his ego if you will. That's Kazantzakis, the ultimate inquirer...in "Christ Recrucified" he repeatedly speaks of a process by which “matter is transubstantiated into spirit.” This struggle involves a series of violent clashes between opposing forces in the soul: mind and matter, spirit and flesh, instinct and reason, vitality and form, action and contemplation. So does our Christ. God in His human form must experience the corporal forces of humanity...and grieves for us. As for why the widow needs to die. I think that's the easiest aspect to understand in this novel. The widow symbolizes those Cretans, both men and women, who submitted both willingly and unwillingly to islam....the "other". She lacks the strength of character to refuse the "other" in the form of "Basil" every bit the "other" himself. The "widow" is the archetype for all who apostasized...this is my opinion. I have not read about how much Kazantzakis knew about the horrors of the Turkish occupation on Crete...and if he uses such imagery in this novel...
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