Zorba the Greek: Reflections on Quotes

(Kazantzakis, N. (1952, 1981). Translated by Carl Wildman. Zorba the Greek. New York: Simon & Schuster.)

1.

“For hundreds of years, Dante’s verses have been sung in the poet’s country. And just as love songs prepare boys and girls for love, so the ardent Florentine verses prepared Italian youths for the day of deliverance. From generation to generation, all communed with the soul of the poet and so transformed their slavery into freedom.

I heard a laugh behind me and at once fell from the Dantesque heights. I looked around and saw Zorba behind me, his whole face creased with laughter.” (pp.33)

2.

“‘Boss, did you see that?’ he said at last. ‘On slopes, stones come to life again.’

I said nothing, but I felt a deep joy. This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything—as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.

The universe for Zorba, as for the first men on earth, was a weighty, intense vision; the stars glided over him, the sea broke against his temples. He lived the earth, water, the animals and God, without the distorting intervention of reason.” (pp. 136)

It is ironic that verses written by another may “transform…slavery into freedom” because being under the influence of another contradicts the notion of free will and freedom. One is no longer free if he exposes his mind to other information, not to mention engage in the writings of another and “commune with the soul of the poet” as his subsequent responses would have been shaped partially to some extent by what he had just read. Another interpretation is the engagement in fiction as temporary escape from the manacles of harsh reality. Then, readers can let their imagination run “free” within the hypothetical realm provided by the writer—if we ignore the fact that we are unconsciously and continually being moulded by education and our culture. Zorba, however, has the luxury of being uneducated and thus “uncontaminated” by the artificial certainties of “knowledge”—simplifications of “truth” that assume it is expressible in a language and that it is understandable to all. Zorba believes only in himself, and not in “blasted books” (pp. 78) because “he’s the only being [he has] in [his] power, the only one [he] knows. All the rest are ghosts” (pp.54). Since he sees everything around him as if for the first time, like a child, he has the opportunity to create his own impressions, to create his own knowledge about what he sees. He is the creator of his own world separate from the objective, physical world; he determines his own mind. He is a true King, and he carries with him a regal aura, observable from the way he treats all people, including the mine workers, with respect, and lives the earth as if it were his. He, like one of the first men on earth, have yet to claim and conquer what he has not seen and come across. He does not lose his way, he carries on with life, the stars gliding over his head; he does not fall to the forces of nature, he is a being with equally potent vital energies who shares the planet with the waves that simply wash against his temples.

Kazantkakis once studied under Henri Bergson, for whom the real world of experience was distinct from the physical world described by science. He rejected the view of a world of inert matter responding deterministically to causal stimuli for a world containing an élan vital (“vital spirit”). Bergson argued for the independence of mental phenomena from the physicochemical processes described by physiologists. He rejected the Darwinian view of evolution by natural selection and proposed instead that life possessed an inherent creative drive that led to the production of new forms. Zorba is a “living” example. He embodies the self-procreating energies of nature that result in evolved, fitter forms of life, spontaneously making up and carrying out plans that lead towards a greater, ultimate plan.

“I felt, as I listened to Zorba, that the world was recovering its pristine freshness….Water, women, the stars, bread, returned to their mysterious, primitive origin and the divine whirlwind burst once more upon the air.” (pp.51)

People now overlook the simple intricacies in life on earth that have yet to be comprehensively appreciated, and instead preoccupy themselves with unnecessary luxuries and developments, or seek fictitious worlds others have created. Zorba constantly snaps the Narrator back into reality whenever he sees the Narrator’s mind drifting too far out, reminding the Narrator that the real, actual world warrants more love and attention. Zorba embodies and embraces all of earth unconditionally, lovingly, curiously; one gets the impression that he was truly borne of this earth, would know all of the earth’s secrets and would easily be able to root himself anywhere. He is always grounded, earthed, in harmony with the Mother that bore all humans. In contrast, “educated people are just empty-headed birds of the air” (pp. 63), studying cultural constructs based upon uncertainties, and taking for granted the treasures around them. He sees deep into the life of inanimate objects, he sees that the formation of stones involved dynamic weathering forces as well as the contributions of living animals. It is as if he identifies with these objects because he sees himself as one of them, simply another one sharing the beautiful earth, and every member of this giant family deserves attention:

“What is this secret connection between the soul, and sea, clouds and perfumes? The soul itself appears to be sea, cloud and perfume…” (pp. 169)

We are all fundamentally of equal status with everything else, whether or not it has a consciousness or not. Human intelligence does not presume superiority. Every creature, every rock, has the right to self-preservation. The tenderness with which Zorba handles his santuri, as if caressing a woman’s body, exemplifies his all-embracing approach to life.