Summary: Told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, he joins up with a man named Zorba to go to Crete and open a mine. While the narrator is a sometimes too much of a logical intellectual, Zorba is a wild working man who has his own philosophy for the world.
Book Review:
Basically this book is about the character of Zorba. He transforms the life of the narrator and while he seems like a crazy person at times, his way of looking at the world is so unique and deep at times that you feel inspired by him. He's a man who has experienced the world and learned from it. He understands it and is at peace with it much more than you or I could ever get to be.
Since this was first published in 1952, being about the friendship of two men, and being written by a man, this book is misogynistic. Women are treated like a lot less than men and are described as only wanting money and that they live to pleasure men. This is by no means a feminist book. Nevertheless, I can't help saying that it's still a great literary novel. It deserves so much more praise than any of Hemingway, who is one of the most boring and male-centered writers I've ever read. Certain lines in Zorba The Greek are spectacular. For example...
"There he is, poor devil, I think, he also eats and drinks and makes love and is frightened, whoever he is: he has his God and his devil just the same, and he'll peg out and lie as stiff as a board beneath the ground and be food for worms, just the same. Poor devil! We're all brothers! All worm-meat!"
And there were so many more.
Zorba is a character unafraid to face off against God and the Devil. He has a strong moral base and always speaks what he feels. He also learns from his experiences though. His connection to the world and its meaning is deeper and more believable than any I've seen or read before.
It's a truly enlightening read.
Fun fact: In the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula's family restaurant is called "The Dancing Zorba," taken from this novel/movie!
Five out of five stars!
Movie Review:
The movie came out in 1964 and ended up winning three Oscars: Best supporting actress, best black-and-white cinematography, and best black-and-white art direction-set decoration. It was also nominated for best picture, best actor, best director, and best screenplay writing based on material from another medium.
Obviously, it's a good movie when you see this kind of praise. However, I think me and many of you will agree that books are typically better than the movie. And the movie, despite these awards and nominations, was unable to surpass the book in my mind.
The actor who plays Zorba is great and I thought he really portrayed the character well. However, the book has so much more detail and the subtle things in it. The movie did the classic hollywood thing where it had to cut out many details. The book was amazing as a whole where you get this entire story of Zorba and the unnamed narrator's time on Crete together. I thought the movie fell short in giving you the inspirational tidbits that I loved so much in the book.
It was a really great book to movie adaptation actually, but not all the beautiful lines in the book could carry over to the movie and I think you lose something with that.
The unnamed narrator from the book felt lacking in the movie. In the book his story felt so entwined with Zorba's, but their connection felt a little meh in the movie.
It was still a pretty good movie and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the book.
I will always suggest reading the book before seeing the movie and the situation is no different here!
Four out of five stars!
Hope you enjoyed this review! I hadn't heard of Zorba The Greek until I picked it up in a Greek bookstore because I wanted an authentic read and since it had "Greek" in the name it must've been, right? The author was Greek though and I really lucked out with randomly selecting this novel that I ended up loving. I'd highly suggest others to try it!
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