They think of me as a scholar, an intellectual, a pen-pusher.
And I am none of them.
When I write, my fingers
get covered not in ink, but in blood.
I think I am nothing more than this:
an undaunted soul.

(Nikos Kazantzakis, 1950)

The above version of The Odyssey is the one I will be reading and quoting in subsequent posts. I know almost nothing about the work other than it begins about where Book XXII of Homer’s Odyssey ends. It was rather hit or miss (and mostly miss) in finding online resources about Kazantzakis and this work. Hopefully my posts on it will add something useful. And as always, pass on any useful sites you think others would appreciate.

Nikos Kazantzakis

His Wikipedia entry and page at Interkriti.org

His biography at History of Greece

Alexander Karanikas, Professor of English Emeritus University of Illinois at Chicago, has a “basic lecture delivered before a variety of audiences” on The Everyman of Nikos Kazantzakis.

I enjoyed Nick Nicholas’ entry on Kazantzakis in his Top 10 Poets & Authors list (link is dead). Although I’m hoping I find The Odyssey more than just “boring bombast”…we shall see.

Now it is true that Kazantzakis is conceited, misogynistic, an intellectual weather-vane, a touch too caught up in Nietzsche, and forever atoning for his childhood. And its also true that the “Kreta Kreta über alles” attitude we share is not reason enough to admire the man. The reason I do admire him is because he is the most consummate stylist Modern Greek has known. In his hands, Greek is an expressive, flexible, heaven-storming medium, even while still caught up in the national ‘Hellenic vs. Romeic’ neurosis. Most other writers are left just with the neurosis. A lot of Kazantzakis’ charm is caught up with his lexical obscurity — the Terzinas just cannot be read without a dialect dictionary. Whether despite that or precisely because of it, he is really effective.

A look at the complexities of the man.

Kazantzakis wife writes in her biography of her husband that he always traveled with a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and that it was at his bedside when he died in 1957. His gravestone is marked with the following: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”

The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

The Wikipedia entry on the work, which includes a synopsis

Theology Today has an article by Carnegie Samuel Calian on Kazantzakis: Prophet of Non-Hope. While it covers all many of his works, it focuses on The Odyssey and Kazantzakis’ own odyssey: “Kazantzakis’ theology is then both radically Christian and non-Christian. He has rightly stressed the need for freedom in our struggle to find meaning in life.”

A review of the book in TIME magazine