Opua: Nikos Kazantzakis
Opua: Nikos Kazantzakis
I sailed back Saturday. Another fine day. Summer has finally come to New Zealand. A few knots more wind than on Friday, from the northwest, and after rounding Cape Brett--shown at about four miles distance in the photo above--we beam reached across the bay at seven knots. Glorious sailing, but with other boats around I had actually to hand steer part of the time.
New Zealand’s biggest race series begins here in a few days, and some interesting state-of-the-art boats have come in. One is all black: hull, mast, covers, ports. It may be a stealth bomber.
I like epic poetry. My books, like my life, are divided. More of those that are important to me are here than in Evanston. Glancing around the bookshelves I built into the back of what were the upper berths, I see Virgil and Dante and Milton and Homer. I thought THE ODYSSEY: A MODERN SEQUEL by Nikos Kazantzakis was here too; but it must be in the condo. It is the only worthy epic poem I know of written last century. Kazantzakis’ Ulysses is unable to settle down after returning to Ithaca and sails for Africa, which he travels on foot, finally at land’s end, setting out for the South Pole.
I have read most of Kazantzakis’ translated work. He is best known outside his native Greece for two novels, ZORBA THE GREEK, and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, which were made into movies.
I watched ZORBA last night. It starred Anthony Quinn and, I think, Alan Bates. Filmed in the 1950ties in black and white. Well done, with some disturbing images of Cretan villagers, who kill one widow in a frenzy of thwarted lust, and descend like cackling sea gulls to pick clean the house of another as she dies.
Kazantzakis believed in dialectics. Zorba is Dionysian; the Bates character, an Englishman, Apollonian. In the end, Dionysus teaches Apollo to dance.
Monday, January 22, 2007