Zorba the Greek [Paperback]

Nikos Kazantzakis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 20, 1996

A fiftieth anniversary edition of the famous novel that inspired the film tells the story of Zorba, a philosophizing, larger-than-life mine owner who confronts life with exuberance and wit. Reprint. 10,000 first printing. NYT.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, published in Greek in 1946 as Vios kai politia tou Alexi Zormpa. The unnamed narrator is a scholarly, introspective writer who opens a coal mine on the fertile island of Crete. He is gradually drawn out of his ascetic shell by an elderly employee named Zorba, an ebullient man who revels in the social pleasures of eating, drinking, and dancing. The narrator's reentry into a life of experience is completed when his newfound lover, the village widow, is ritually murdered by a jealous mob. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; 3rd edition (December 20, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684825546
• ISBN-13: 978-0684825540
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > European

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonder and tragedy: our short and beautiful time on earth, April 9, 2000

By 

Deborah (Minneapolis, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zorba the Greek (Paperback)

In approximately 1914, before World War I, the narrator, a young cerebral writer who wants to become rooted in the earth and physical labor, rents a lignite mine on the beautiful island of Crete. As he is about to depart, he meets a much older, experienced, and very earthy Alexis Zorba, whom he hires to be his foreman and cook. What he learns, and we through him, may change your life. First, a warning: to appreciate this amazing book, one must be able to look past the misogyny and sexism of life on Crete in 1914, and focus on the love and relationship of two men. Zorba plays the santuri, has had a family and many lovers, has fought in the Balkan Wars, has lived and loved-his knowledge is rooted in love, suffering, sweat, and blood. He is a simple but deep man who lives life without shame, bares himself, has no guile or guise, and lives every moment fully--not only his joy, but his tears, his compassion, his anger, his hunger, his thoughts and his questions. His character is perceptively portrayed by the first person narrator who is a contemplative who gradually comes to see the poverty of a life always filtered through philosophical, religious, or cultural judgments. He immediately appreciates Zorba's wonder at life, Zorba's music and dance, and the way Zorba sees the same old things every day as if new. Zorba is life itself, a fleeting moment with a discrete beginning and final end. The narrator especially learns that by holding on to his safety and security he has sacrificed much by failing to live to the fullest like Zorba. The book is absolutely beautifully written, makes you cry at the beauty and wonder of being alive, makes you ache for loved ones who are gone, and cry at our ultimate fate, death, in the face of which we must live with ever more Zorba-like zest.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Against moral accountability, January 10, 2004

By 

Fivos R. Drymiotis (South Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Zorba the Greek (Paperback)

Although this is a review to the book it is also a response to the review of besario. Kazanzakis as I mentioned in my review to "Report to Greco" spend all his life trying to understand the role of humans on this earth and our struggle with spirituality. Zorbas comes in as a character that is the complete opposite to the character of Kazantzakis in "Report to Greco". He is the portrayal of a man that is morally accountable to no-one but himself. This is along the lines of existentialism (as in "Caligula" by Albert Camus). It is up to the reader to understand what Kazantzakis wants to convey in this book, but the reader must be familiar with the author and also to have the ability to think beyond the surface. Our behavior depends on whether we believe that at the end we will have to account for our actions or just disappear. This is a choice that centers on idividual humans as we are the sole judges. We can either follow Kazantzakis' character in "Report to Greco" or his character in "Zorba the Greek" or just a happy medium. Zorba the Greek is not a celebration of the Greek spirit and it is not how the majority of Greeks are. The books is not meant to be a travel guide to Greece but rather an outline of human behavior when it has no moral boundaries. This book is not light reading, as you have to be the judge of Zorbas' actions and it is for an audience that is capable of higher level thought.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Story for All Seasons, April 17, 2004

By 

Michail Kyril (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Zorba the Greek (Paperback)

The classic movie starring Anthony Quinn was based upon this book.

As the story goes, Alexis Zorba is an old Greek workman who accompanies the narrator, a bookish philosopher, to Crete to exploit a mine he owns there. Zorba is a figure created on a huge scale: his years have not dimmed the flame by which he lives, the gusto with which he responds to all that life offers him, whether he is organizing the work at the mine, coping with mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the endless tale of his past adventures, or making love to Dame Hortense.

Nikos Kazantzakis is one of the most distinguished and individual of modern Greek writers, and in Zorba the Greek he has written a book that lives by a vitality and rhythm that seems to owe little or nothing to the contemporary traditions of the Western novel. It is bursting with wit, fantasy, and enjoyment of life, and at the same time has a continual undertone of serious philosophical reflection. Zorba the Greek is Rabelaisian, a Don Quixote in which the role of the knight and Sancho Panza are reversed, plus a distinct Arabian Nights touch.

About the Author
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Crete in 1885. He studied at the University of Athens where he received his Doctor of Laws degree, later in Paris under the philosopher Henri Bergson, and completed his studies in literature and art during four other years spent in Germany and Italy. Also author of The Last Temptation of Christ and Saint Francis, not to mention one of the best spiritual autobiographies I have ever read, Report to Greco.