Zorba the Greek
Overall Rating 7 /10
Idea: Philosophizing about life through the excuse of a story
Tagline: 2 Humans make a mess of a business in Crete
Rereadability: 3/10 Other than the pleasure of rereading a classic - with the philosophical bits pulled out just review Philosophical bits if interested in re-reading
Useful Ideas:
Time to Read Synopsis :
Untested
Quotes:
"Ugh! You sit there and ask! A sudden whim, my friend! You don't expect to learn spelling from the backside of the miller's wife, do you? That's what human reason is: the backside of the miller's wife."
Simenon’s astonishing literary productivity was matched, or even surpassed, in one other area of his daily life—his sexual appetite. “Most people work every day and enjoy sex periodically,” Patrick Marnh~ notes in his biography of the writer. “Simenon had sex every day and every few months indulged in a frenzied orgy of work.” When living in Paris, Simenon frequently slept with four different women in the s~e day. He estimated that he bedded ten thousand women in his life. (His second wife disagreed, putting the total closer to twelve hundred.) He explained his sexual hunger as the result of “extreme curiosity” about the opposite sex: “Women have always been exceptional people for me whom I have vainly tried to understand. It has been a lifelong, ceaseless quest. And how could I have created dozens, perhaps hundreds, of female characters in my novels if I had not experienced those adventures which lasted for two hours or ten minutes?”
Why? Didn't we agree? Haven't we agreed for years now? The Japanese you love, how do they say it? Fudoshin. Equanimity; imperturbability; one's features an unmoving, smiling mask. Whatever happens behind the mask is one's own business.
Ugh! You sit there and ask! A sudden whim, my friend! You don't expect to learn spelling from the backside of the miller's wife, do you? That's what human reason is: the backside of the miller's wife.
I've become a different person since the time I learned santouri. I play santouri and find relief whenever I ~ worried or ~ strained by lack of money.
Are you married? I'm human, ~ I not? To be human means to be blind. I fell face-first into the s~e pothole that those before me fell into. I got married, went to the dogs, down the steep slope. I bec~e middle class, built a home, produced children. Nothing but trouble! But thank God for the santouri.
This world offers many pleasures: women, fruit, ideas. But I think no pleasure exists that plunges a person's heart into Paradise more than the joy of cutting across this sea on a gentle autumn day, murmuring the n~e of each island. Nowhere else are you transported from truth to dre~ with such serenity and ease. Boundaries fade; the mast of even the most dilapidated ship sprouts buds and grapes. Here in Greece, truly, necessity blossoms most certainly into miracle.
However, without waiting for an answer, he inquired, weighing me with his eyes: What can you say? So far as I know, Your Excellency has never gone hungry, never killed, never stolen, never committed adultery. So, what can you know about the world?
Surely what he saw before him now was not this painted old mummy but the entire female species as he customarily referred to women. Individuality vanished, facial features vanished; whether young or decrepit, beautiful or ugly, everything was reduced to an insignificant variation. Looming up austerely behind each and every female was the sacred, mystery-filled countenance of Aphrodite. Those were the features that e Hortense was simply a temporary diaphanous mask that
Workers fear a hard boss, respect him, and do good work for him; they take control of a soft boss as though he were a horse meant for them to saddle and mount, and they start loafing.
If you treat them badly, they respect and dread you; if you treat them well, they cause your ruin. Keep your distance, Boss. Don't embolden people, don't tell them that we are all one and the same, all have the same rights, because immediately they'll trample your rights, snatch away your bread, and leave you to croak.
I thought to myself, This man did not go to school, yet his mind is not impaired. He has seen, done, and suffered much; his intellect has been opened and his heart enlarged without losing its primordial stoutheartedness. All the problems that are so complicated and unsolvable for us: he solves them with a single sword-stroke, as did his compatriot Alexander the Great with the Gordian knot. It is difficult for him to fall into error because the whole of him, from scalp to sole, is planted in the earth. African savages worship snakes because their entire body touches the ground, enabling them to know earth's secrets through belly, tail, testicles, head. They touch the Mother, join her, become one with her.
He often said, as he placed the cook pot on the fire, this is another interminable story. Women, bless them, are not the only story; food is, too. It was on this beach that I enjoyed the pleasure of eating for the very first time.
What can you expect from women? To have children by whoever happens to be available. What can you expect from men? To fall into the trap. No time to fiddle-faddle about any of that.
A woman is a refreshing spring. You bend over it, see your face reflected in the water, drink”you drink, and your bones grate. Afterward comes someone else who thirsts. He bends over in his turn, sees his face reflected, and drinks. After that, still another comes. That's what it means to be a spring, what it means to be a woman. Afterward, did you leave? What did you want me to do? That was a spring, as we said; I was a passer-by. I took off again. I stayed three months with her, God bless her. No complaints. But after three months I remembered that I had set out for a mine. Sofinka, I said to her one morning, I have work to do. I must leave. Fine, said Sofinka. Go. I'll wait one month for you. If you don't come back in a month, I'm free. You're free, too. With God's blessing.I left.
You'd better know, Boss, that the Slavic woman isn't like these cheap, selfish, self-seeking Greek women who sell you sex by the gram and do everything they can to slip it to you underweight, cheating you on the scales. The Slavic woman, Boss, has scales that measure overweight. She gives something extra in sleep, sex, and meals. She's closely related to animals, closely related to the earth. She gives, gives in abundance, is not a skinflint like those trinket-selling Greek girls.--->Reminds me of Italy - It always seemed like Italian women weighed sex by the gram and tried to slip it to you underweight - What a marvelous and enchanting way to describe sexuality and a sexual way of being of nations -
One night, he answered, I returned home and did not find her. She had left. Some gorgeous hunk, a soldier boy, had shown up in the village the last few days and she went off with him. Gone! My heart broke in two. But that stinker, my heart, came back together again quickly enough. Have you ever seen the sort of ship's sails that have been mended in a thousand places with red, yellow, and black patches sewn with a strong cord, so that these sails never tear again even in the greatest tempests? That's what my heart is like. Pierced a thousand times, patched a thousand times, durable. --> Another Beautiful analogy that resonates with me - Especially after falling in and out of love the first times it felt like the sail would never be repaired but after the tenth, twentieth, fifieth, one hundreth time the patch work takes over and a certain resilience is retained in the sail.
Damned fireball, damn you to hell! roared Manolakas, the rural field guard. You start a flame in our trouser legs and never put it out. (Speaking of an attractive Widow)
Life is trouble; death isn't.
And the widow - listen now to me, Bossâ the widow will give you the finder's reward and you will enter Paradise on horseback, I tell you. (O God! if only I were on the rump of your horse!) No other Paradise exists, my poor friend. Don't listen to the priests. No other Paradise exists!
My life was going to waste, that the widow and I were two insects living for a split second in sunlight and then lying dead for eternity. Last chance! Last chance!
˜No, I'm not coming, I tell him. Don't you fear God, you infidel? ˜Why should I fear God? Because, you young Greek, whoever has the chance of sleeping with a woman and does not sleep with her commits a great sin. If a woman calls you to her bed and you do not go, your soul is destroyed! That woman will sigh at the moment of God's great judgment and that sigh of the woman will throw you down into hell no matter who you are and how many good things you have done.
Don't laugh, Boss! If a woman sleeps alone, the blame falls on us men, on all of us. The next morning we'll be required, every one of us, to explain ourselves at God's judgment proceedings. As we said, God holds a sponge and forgives every sin except this one, which he does not forgive. Woe to the man, Boss, who could have slept with a woman and did not; woe to the woman who could have slept with a man and did not.
You're a young man, Boss, he said, his voice suddenly breaking into bitterness and anger. You are youthful, healthy, you eat and drink well, breathe fresh air, and collect more and more strength. But what do you do with it? You sleep alone - too bad for all that strength. Get up, yes, exactly tonight, don't waste time. The world is simple, Boss how many times do I need to tell you that? Don't make it complicated.
Hey, my wise Solomon, my inkpot, Christ is born! Stop putting everything through a fine sieve: Is born? Is not born? Don't be stupid: he is born. A technician once told me that if you examine our drinking water with a magnifying glass, you'll observe the water full of worms, very small ones, he says, that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Observing these worms, you won't drink. Not drinking, you'll die of thirst. So break the magnifying glass, Boss, break that lousy lens to make the worms disappear, lickety-split, so you can drink water and refresh yourself.
I recalled one dawn when I had chanced upon a butterfly's cocoon in a pine tree at the very moment when the husk was breaking and the inner soul was preparing to emerge. I kept waiting and waiting; it was slow and I was in a hurry. Leaning over it, I began to warm it with my breath. I kept warming it impatiently until the miracle commenced to unfold before my eyes at an unnatural speed. The husk opened completely; the butterfly came out. But never shall I forget my horror: its wings remained curled inward, not unfolded. The whole of its minuscule body shook as it struggled to spread the wings outward. But it could not. As for me, I struggled to aid it with my breath. In vain. What it needed was to ripen and unfold patiently in sunlight. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in my palm. To hasten eternal rules is a mortal sin. One's duty is confidently to follow nature's everlasting rhythm.
The widow stopped now, extended her arm, and forcefully pushed open the orchard door just as I was passing in front of her. Turning, she looked at me again, her eyebrows quivering. She allowed the door to remain open. I saw her disappear behind the orange trees, wagging her hips. To stride over the threshold, bolt the door, run after her, grasp her around the waist, and fall with her upon the blanket-covered bed without saying a word - that's what a real man would do, what my grandfather would have done, and I hope my grandson will do. As for me, I remained undecided and began to think.
Reopening the book, I read in it once again. Why had I been entranced for so many years by these poems? Pure Poetry! Let life become a transparent, lightweight game unburdened by even a single drop of blood. Since the human elements sex, flesh, outcries of spontaneous passion is boorish, crude, and unclean, let it become an abstract idea that dematerializes and dissipates through alchemical transformation within the smelting furnace of the mind.
Walking downhill at one point, Amazing spectacle. When he turned and looked at me, I discerned some slight fear in his eyes. Did you notice that, Boss? he asked me after some silence. Stones come to life when they spin downhill. I said nothing, but felt immense pleasure. Great visionaries and poets see everything in the same way, for the first time. They see a new world before them each morning. No, they do not see this new world; they create it. For I have no faith in the mystical forces that supposedly protect us humans. I believe in the blind power that strikes to the right and left without malice or purpose, and that kills whoever happens to be near it.
Well, I was saying that I'm unfortunate. I clearly view all my smartness as nothing but stupidity. Yet there are moments. I go through certain days with a great man's thoughts. If I were able to execute what the interior ahead! You're laughing at me now, Boss, but I'm writing you my nonsense or, let's say, my thoughts, my weaknesses by God, I don't understand what difference those three have. Well, I'm writing you. If you're not weary of all this, go ahead and laugh. I laugh because you laugh; that's why laughter has no end on earth. Every person has his or her folly, but the greatest folly, I believe, is not to have a folly.
I ordered a bottle of beer and, what do you know, who comes and enthrones herself next to me but a youngish yum-yum, tastyish dark-skinned creature wearing trowelfuls of makeup. Do you mind, grandpa? she asks with a smirk. I lit up. I felt like grabbing the half-baked girlie by her Adams apple. But I held back. Pitying the female species, I called the waiter: Two ch~pagnes, I ordered. (Forgive me, Boss, I spent your money, but the insult was tremendous. I had to avoid being humiliated, avoid you being humiliated, Boss had to make that underage brat kneel down in front of us. Had to! I well knew that you wouldn't leave me defenseless at this difficult time. So: Waiter: Two champagnes) The champagnes came. I ordered sweets, and more champagne. Somebody came along with jasmine flowers. I bought the whole basketful and emptied it into her lap. We drank and drank. But I swear to you, Boss, I didn't even touch her. I know my job. When I was young, the first thing I did was to touch. Now that I've grown old, the first thing I do is to spend money, be generous, throw money away. Women are driven mad by such behavior, they're driven mad, the hen-hussies. You can be a hunchbacked wreck, no spring chicken, a sloppy fool, and they forget everything, see nothing, the floozies, except the hand that squanders money. So I spent your money (best wishes, Boss, and may God multiply the amount for you); yes, I spent it and the woman in question still hasn't unglued herself from my side. She came closer to me little by little, leaned her itsy-bitsy knee against my hard bones, but I froze, even though I was melting inside. This enrages women -something you should know in case the same thing happens to you. It's when they sense that you are burning up inside and nevertheless are keeping your hands to yourself. Anyway, not to bore you by ranbling on, midnight came and went. Lights were slowly turned off, the cafe' chantant was closing. I took out a wad of thousand-drachma notes and paid, adding a generous tip for the waiter. The little creature drapes herself all over me. What's your name? she asks in a low voice, lewdly. Grandpa! I answer, irritated. The disgraceful tramp pinches me assertively.Come..., she says to me, winking. Grasping her tiny hand, I squeeze it significantly. Let's go, my little one, I say in a voice grown hoarse. The rest you understand. I gave it to her good. Then we fell asleep. When I awoke, probably in midafternoon, I looked around me and what did I see, a small room, clean and tidy as can be, armchairs, washbasin, soap, large bottles, small bottles, large mirrors, small mirrors, colorful dresses hanging on the walls along with lots of photos: sailors, officers, captains, policemen, dancing women, women dressed in nothing but a pair of sandals. And next to me in the bed, warm, perfumed, hair undone, the female species.
Once upon a time, this will let you understand better,I was crazy about cherries as a child. I didn't have much money, so I bought a few at a time, ate them, and yearned for more. I thought of cherries day and night, my saliva flowing. Torture! Until one day I felt angry, felt ashamed (not sure which), realizing that cherries were doing with me what they wished, making a fool of me. So what did I figure out? I get up at night on the sly, search my father's pants pockets, find a silver coin, pinch it. That morning I'm up early. Off I go to an orchard and buy a basketful of cherries. I sit down in a ditch and begin to eat. I eat and eat, become bloated, get a stomachache, puke. Yes, I puked, Boss, and from then on was saved from cherries. I couldn't even look at them again. I became a free man. From then on, every time I saw a cherry I would say, "I don't need you! I did the same with wine, the same with cigarettes. I still drink, still smoke, but the moment I want to cut them, I do so ”whapp! with a knife. I'm not dominated by passion. The same with patriotism. I craved, gorged, puked, escaped. And women? I asked with a laugh. Their turn will come, damn them! But not until I'm seventy. He thought a moment, considering this insufficient. Eighty, he corrected himself. You laugh, Boss, and can continue if you wish. But that's how people liberate themselves. Listen to me: they liberate themselves by being rakes, not monks. And you: how will you get free of the Devil if you don't become Devil and a half?
Have you never heard of that skirt-chasing ancient god who never left a single woman in the world unsatisfied? I've heard a bit about him. It seems that he dyed his beard, tattooed hearts and mermaids on his arms, apparently masqueraded as a bull, swan, ram, donkey, whatever suited the appetite (if you'll excuse me saying so) of each and every slut. Please indulge me by telling me his name. I imagine you're talking about Zeus. How did you remember him? God bless his soul!
The pen. So the world falls into the hands of pen pushers. Those who live the mysteries lack time and those who don't lack time don't live the mysteries. Got it? What about Zeus? Stop changing the subject. Oh, the poor fellow! said he his successor, Christ. Seeing the holy mess the former god was in, he proclaimed, Steer clear of women!
Then, clutching his mustache, he finally declared, That's raw, uncooked stuff: meat fit for a schoolmaster, a mind fit for the same. Pardon me, Boss, but no matter what I say to you, it goes to waste. But why? I protested. I do understand,
I have slaughtered, robbed, burned villages, raped women, wiped out households. Why? Supposedly because they were Bulgarians or Turks. Damn you to hell, you swine! I often say to myself, and give myself the fuck you sign. Damn you! You nitwit! Well, I've really learned something. Now I look at people and say, This one is a good person, that one a bad person. It doesn't matter whether he's a Bulgarian or a Greek. To me they're both the same. The only thing I ask now is whether he's good or bad. And the older I get, yes, by the bread I eat, it seems to me that I'll begin not to ask that either. Bah, who cares if they're good or bad? I pity them all. When I see someone, my guts split apart even if I pretend not to give a damn. Look here, I say: this poor devil eats, drinks, loves, fears, has his God and his Devil; he, too, will kick the bucket and be laid out dead as a doornail underground to be eaten by worms. Poor miserable devil! We're brothers, all of us. Food for worms! And if it's a woman, then by God I start weeping. Your Excellency teases me every now and then about loving women. Damn it, how can I keep from loving them? They're such weak creatures, don't have an inkling of what's happening to them, and if you take hold of them by the breast they all at once open every household door and surrender themselves to you. Another time when I had entered a Bulgarian village, a wretched village notable, a Greek, betrayed me and they surrounded the house where I'd found lodging. I flew out onto the balcony, crept from tiled rooftop to tiled rooftop,it was nighttime, with a moon, then jumped from flat roof to flat roof like a cat, to escape. But they spotted my shadow, climbed up onto the rooftops, and I'm strewn with rifle fire. So what do I do? I tumble down into a courtyard where a Bulgarian woman was sleeping. She jumps up in her nightdress, sees me, begins to open her mouth to scream, but I reach out, say, Good grief, quiet! and grab her breast. She turns pale, stoops, whispers to me, Come inside so they won't see us. I go inside. Are you Greek? she asks. Yes, Greek. Don't give me away. I took her around the waist. She said nothing. I slept with her, my heart trembling with the pleasure. Hey, just look, e, you fool; she's a human being, a human being.
He once said to me, Half-finished jobs, conversations, sins, and virtues are what have brought the world to its present mess. Reach the end, everyone! Strike; win the fight! God detests the half-Devil more than the Devil-in-chief.
I said nothing. To say yes to necessity, transubstantiating the unavoidable into one's own free will, is perhaps our only path to deliverance. I knew this, and for that reason said nothing.
What you need to learn, dear savant, is that no greater pleasure than this exists for a woman. You should also know that a true woman is more pleased by the pleasure she gives to a man than by the pleasure she takes from him.
We all have demons, Zorba, so don't be frightened. The more we have, the better it is. It's sufficient if they all move toward the same goal via different routes.
Do it simply, so I can understand. As for me, until now I allowed my demons to be free and do as they pleased, to follow whatever path they liked. That's why some people call me dishonest, others honest, some a fool, others a wise Solomon. I am all of those and still more, a real Russian salad. So, enlighten me if you please. What goal? I believe, Zorba, but can be wrong, that human beings are of three kinds: those whose purpose, as they say, is to live their own lives - to eat, drink, kiss, grow rich, become famous; next are those whose purpose is to live not their own lives but the life of humanity as a whole, since they feel that all human beings are one and the same in their struggle to enlighten, to love, and benefit others; finally there are those whose purpose is to live the life of the entire universe, since all people, animals, vegetables, and stars are one and the same, one essence engaged in the same struggle's namely, to transubstantiate matter into spirit.
Hey, Boss, how about dancing everything you said, so I can understand it?
Thus whenever we are internally victorious, even though we are utterly defeated outwardly, the true human being feels indescribable pride and joy. The outer misfortune is transformed into the highest, most obdurate form of bliss.
Happiness means doing one's duty. The greater the difficulty in doing one's duty, the greater the happiness.
That's difficult, Boss, very difficult. What's needed in this instance is folly. Do you hear? Folly! You need to go the whole hog. But you've got intelligence, and that will eat you up. Intelligence is a grocer. It keeps accounts, writes I gave this amount, got that amount, this amount the loss, that amount the gain. Intelligence is a good manager, you know, never putting everything on the line, always holding something back. It doesn't break the string, oh no! That louse holds it tightly in its hands; if the string slips away, intelligence is finished, done for, the bum! But tell me, for as long as it fails to break the string, what solid basis does life have? Chamomile, diluted chamomile. What's needed to turn the world upside down is rum!
The Lover of Life, the authentic, primordial, all-embracing Dancer, a man renowned for his robust exuberance, his vigor and vitality.
Idea: Philosophizing about life through the excuse of a story
Tagline: 2 Humans make a mess of a business in Crete
Rereadability: 3/10 Other than the pleasure of rereading a classic - with the philosophical bits pulled out just review Philosophical bits if interested in re-reading
Useful Ideas:
Time to Read Synopsis :
Untested
Quotes:
"Ugh! You sit there and ask! A sudden whim, my friend! You don't expect to learn spelling from the backside of the miller's wife, do you? That's what human reason is: the backside of the miller's wife."
Simenon’s astonishing literary productivity was matched, or even surpassed, in one other area of his daily life—his sexual appetite. “Most people work every day and enjoy sex periodically,” Patrick Marnh~ notes in his biography of the writer. “Simenon had sex every day and every few months indulged in a frenzied orgy of work.” When living in Paris, Simenon frequently slept with four different women in the s~e day. He estimated that he bedded ten thousand women in his life. (His second wife disagreed, putting the total closer to twelve hundred.) He explained his sexual hunger as the result of “extreme curiosity” about the opposite sex: “Women have always been exceptional people for me whom I have vainly tried to understand. It has been a lifelong, ceaseless quest. And how could I have created dozens, perhaps hundreds, of female characters in my novels if I had not experienced those adventures which lasted for two hours or ten minutes?”
Why? Didn't we agree? Haven't we agreed for years now? The Japanese you love, how do they say it? Fudoshin. Equanimity; imperturbability; one's features an unmoving, smiling mask. Whatever happens behind the mask is one's own business.
Ugh! You sit there and ask! A sudden whim, my friend! You don't expect to learn spelling from the backside of the miller's wife, do you? That's what human reason is: the backside of the miller's wife.
I've become a different person since the time I learned santouri. I play santouri and find relief whenever I ~ worried or ~ strained by lack of money.
Are you married? I'm human, ~ I not? To be human means to be blind. I fell face-first into the s~e pothole that those before me fell into. I got married, went to the dogs, down the steep slope. I bec~e middle class, built a home, produced children. Nothing but trouble! But thank God for the santouri.
This world offers many pleasures: women, fruit, ideas. But I think no pleasure exists that plunges a person's heart into Paradise more than the joy of cutting across this sea on a gentle autumn day, murmuring the n~e of each island. Nowhere else are you transported from truth to dre~ with such serenity and ease. Boundaries fade; the mast of even the most dilapidated ship sprouts buds and grapes. Here in Greece, truly, necessity blossoms most certainly into miracle.
However, without waiting for an answer, he inquired, weighing me with his eyes: What can you say? So far as I know, Your Excellency has never gone hungry, never killed, never stolen, never committed adultery. So, what can you know about the world?
Surely what he saw before him now was not this painted old mummy but the entire female species as he customarily referred to women. Individuality vanished, facial features vanished; whether young or decrepit, beautiful or ugly, everything was reduced to an insignificant variation. Looming up austerely behind each and every female was the sacred, mystery-filled countenance of Aphrodite. Those were the features that e Hortense was simply a temporary diaphanous mask that
Workers fear a hard boss, respect him, and do good work for him; they take control of a soft boss as though he were a horse meant for them to saddle and mount, and they start loafing.
If you treat them badly, they respect and dread you; if you treat them well, they cause your ruin. Keep your distance, Boss. Don't embolden people, don't tell them that we are all one and the same, all have the same rights, because immediately they'll trample your rights, snatch away your bread, and leave you to croak.
I thought to myself, This man did not go to school, yet his mind is not impaired. He has seen, done, and suffered much; his intellect has been opened and his heart enlarged without losing its primordial stoutheartedness. All the problems that are so complicated and unsolvable for us: he solves them with a single sword-stroke, as did his compatriot Alexander the Great with the Gordian knot. It is difficult for him to fall into error because the whole of him, from scalp to sole, is planted in the earth. African savages worship snakes because their entire body touches the ground, enabling them to know earth's secrets through belly, tail, testicles, head. They touch the Mother, join her, become one with her.
He often said, as he placed the cook pot on the fire, this is another interminable story. Women, bless them, are not the only story; food is, too. It was on this beach that I enjoyed the pleasure of eating for the very first time.
What can you expect from women? To have children by whoever happens to be available. What can you expect from men? To fall into the trap. No time to fiddle-faddle about any of that.
A woman is a refreshing spring. You bend over it, see your face reflected in the water, drink”you drink, and your bones grate. Afterward comes someone else who thirsts. He bends over in his turn, sees his face reflected, and drinks. After that, still another comes. That's what it means to be a spring, what it means to be a woman. Afterward, did you leave? What did you want me to do? That was a spring, as we said; I was a passer-by. I took off again. I stayed three months with her, God bless her. No complaints. But after three months I remembered that I had set out for a mine. Sofinka, I said to her one morning, I have work to do. I must leave. Fine, said Sofinka. Go. I'll wait one month for you. If you don't come back in a month, I'm free. You're free, too. With God's blessing.I left.
You'd better know, Boss, that the Slavic woman isn't like these cheap, selfish, self-seeking Greek women who sell you sex by the gram and do everything they can to slip it to you underweight, cheating you on the scales. The Slavic woman, Boss, has scales that measure overweight. She gives something extra in sleep, sex, and meals. She's closely related to animals, closely related to the earth. She gives, gives in abundance, is not a skinflint like those trinket-selling Greek girls.--->Reminds me of Italy - It always seemed like Italian women weighed sex by the gram and tried to slip it to you underweight - What a marvelous and enchanting way to describe sexuality and a sexual way of being of nations -
One night, he answered, I returned home and did not find her. She had left. Some gorgeous hunk, a soldier boy, had shown up in the village the last few days and she went off with him. Gone! My heart broke in two. But that stinker, my heart, came back together again quickly enough. Have you ever seen the sort of ship's sails that have been mended in a thousand places with red, yellow, and black patches sewn with a strong cord, so that these sails never tear again even in the greatest tempests? That's what my heart is like. Pierced a thousand times, patched a thousand times, durable. --> Another Beautiful analogy that resonates with me - Especially after falling in and out of love the first times it felt like the sail would never be repaired but after the tenth, twentieth, fifieth, one hundreth time the patch work takes over and a certain resilience is retained in the sail.
Damned fireball, damn you to hell! roared Manolakas, the rural field guard. You start a flame in our trouser legs and never put it out. (Speaking of an attractive Widow)
Life is trouble; death isn't.
And the widow - listen now to me, Bossâ the widow will give you the finder's reward and you will enter Paradise on horseback, I tell you. (O God! if only I were on the rump of your horse!) No other Paradise exists, my poor friend. Don't listen to the priests. No other Paradise exists!
My life was going to waste, that the widow and I were two insects living for a split second in sunlight and then lying dead for eternity. Last chance! Last chance!
˜No, I'm not coming, I tell him. Don't you fear God, you infidel? ˜Why should I fear God? Because, you young Greek, whoever has the chance of sleeping with a woman and does not sleep with her commits a great sin. If a woman calls you to her bed and you do not go, your soul is destroyed! That woman will sigh at the moment of God's great judgment and that sigh of the woman will throw you down into hell no matter who you are and how many good things you have done.
Don't laugh, Boss! If a woman sleeps alone, the blame falls on us men, on all of us. The next morning we'll be required, every one of us, to explain ourselves at God's judgment proceedings. As we said, God holds a sponge and forgives every sin except this one, which he does not forgive. Woe to the man, Boss, who could have slept with a woman and did not; woe to the woman who could have slept with a man and did not.
You're a young man, Boss, he said, his voice suddenly breaking into bitterness and anger. You are youthful, healthy, you eat and drink well, breathe fresh air, and collect more and more strength. But what do you do with it? You sleep alone - too bad for all that strength. Get up, yes, exactly tonight, don't waste time. The world is simple, Boss how many times do I need to tell you that? Don't make it complicated.
Hey, my wise Solomon, my inkpot, Christ is born! Stop putting everything through a fine sieve: Is born? Is not born? Don't be stupid: he is born. A technician once told me that if you examine our drinking water with a magnifying glass, you'll observe the water full of worms, very small ones, he says, that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Observing these worms, you won't drink. Not drinking, you'll die of thirst. So break the magnifying glass, Boss, break that lousy lens to make the worms disappear, lickety-split, so you can drink water and refresh yourself.
I recalled one dawn when I had chanced upon a butterfly's cocoon in a pine tree at the very moment when the husk was breaking and the inner soul was preparing to emerge. I kept waiting and waiting; it was slow and I was in a hurry. Leaning over it, I began to warm it with my breath. I kept warming it impatiently until the miracle commenced to unfold before my eyes at an unnatural speed. The husk opened completely; the butterfly came out. But never shall I forget my horror: its wings remained curled inward, not unfolded. The whole of its minuscule body shook as it struggled to spread the wings outward. But it could not. As for me, I struggled to aid it with my breath. In vain. What it needed was to ripen and unfold patiently in sunlight. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in my palm. To hasten eternal rules is a mortal sin. One's duty is confidently to follow nature's everlasting rhythm.
The widow stopped now, extended her arm, and forcefully pushed open the orchard door just as I was passing in front of her. Turning, she looked at me again, her eyebrows quivering. She allowed the door to remain open. I saw her disappear behind the orange trees, wagging her hips. To stride over the threshold, bolt the door, run after her, grasp her around the waist, and fall with her upon the blanket-covered bed without saying a word - that's what a real man would do, what my grandfather would have done, and I hope my grandson will do. As for me, I remained undecided and began to think.
Reopening the book, I read in it once again. Why had I been entranced for so many years by these poems? Pure Poetry! Let life become a transparent, lightweight game unburdened by even a single drop of blood. Since the human elements sex, flesh, outcries of spontaneous passion is boorish, crude, and unclean, let it become an abstract idea that dematerializes and dissipates through alchemical transformation within the smelting furnace of the mind.
Walking downhill at one point, Amazing spectacle. When he turned and looked at me, I discerned some slight fear in his eyes. Did you notice that, Boss? he asked me after some silence. Stones come to life when they spin downhill. I said nothing, but felt immense pleasure. Great visionaries and poets see everything in the same way, for the first time. They see a new world before them each morning. No, they do not see this new world; they create it. For I have no faith in the mystical forces that supposedly protect us humans. I believe in the blind power that strikes to the right and left without malice or purpose, and that kills whoever happens to be near it.
Well, I was saying that I'm unfortunate. I clearly view all my smartness as nothing but stupidity. Yet there are moments. I go through certain days with a great man's thoughts. If I were able to execute what the interior ahead! You're laughing at me now, Boss, but I'm writing you my nonsense or, let's say, my thoughts, my weaknesses by God, I don't understand what difference those three have. Well, I'm writing you. If you're not weary of all this, go ahead and laugh. I laugh because you laugh; that's why laughter has no end on earth. Every person has his or her folly, but the greatest folly, I believe, is not to have a folly.
I ordered a bottle of beer and, what do you know, who comes and enthrones herself next to me but a youngish yum-yum, tastyish dark-skinned creature wearing trowelfuls of makeup. Do you mind, grandpa? she asks with a smirk. I lit up. I felt like grabbing the half-baked girlie by her Adams apple. But I held back. Pitying the female species, I called the waiter: Two ch~pagnes, I ordered. (Forgive me, Boss, I spent your money, but the insult was tremendous. I had to avoid being humiliated, avoid you being humiliated, Boss had to make that underage brat kneel down in front of us. Had to! I well knew that you wouldn't leave me defenseless at this difficult time. So: Waiter: Two champagnes) The champagnes came. I ordered sweets, and more champagne. Somebody came along with jasmine flowers. I bought the whole basketful and emptied it into her lap. We drank and drank. But I swear to you, Boss, I didn't even touch her. I know my job. When I was young, the first thing I did was to touch. Now that I've grown old, the first thing I do is to spend money, be generous, throw money away. Women are driven mad by such behavior, they're driven mad, the hen-hussies. You can be a hunchbacked wreck, no spring chicken, a sloppy fool, and they forget everything, see nothing, the floozies, except the hand that squanders money. So I spent your money (best wishes, Boss, and may God multiply the amount for you); yes, I spent it and the woman in question still hasn't unglued herself from my side. She came closer to me little by little, leaned her itsy-bitsy knee against my hard bones, but I froze, even though I was melting inside. This enrages women -something you should know in case the same thing happens to you. It's when they sense that you are burning up inside and nevertheless are keeping your hands to yourself. Anyway, not to bore you by ranbling on, midnight came and went. Lights were slowly turned off, the cafe' chantant was closing. I took out a wad of thousand-drachma notes and paid, adding a generous tip for the waiter. The little creature drapes herself all over me. What's your name? she asks in a low voice, lewdly. Grandpa! I answer, irritated. The disgraceful tramp pinches me assertively.Come..., she says to me, winking. Grasping her tiny hand, I squeeze it significantly. Let's go, my little one, I say in a voice grown hoarse. The rest you understand. I gave it to her good. Then we fell asleep. When I awoke, probably in midafternoon, I looked around me and what did I see, a small room, clean and tidy as can be, armchairs, washbasin, soap, large bottles, small bottles, large mirrors, small mirrors, colorful dresses hanging on the walls along with lots of photos: sailors, officers, captains, policemen, dancing women, women dressed in nothing but a pair of sandals. And next to me in the bed, warm, perfumed, hair undone, the female species.
Once upon a time, this will let you understand better,I was crazy about cherries as a child. I didn't have much money, so I bought a few at a time, ate them, and yearned for more. I thought of cherries day and night, my saliva flowing. Torture! Until one day I felt angry, felt ashamed (not sure which), realizing that cherries were doing with me what they wished, making a fool of me. So what did I figure out? I get up at night on the sly, search my father's pants pockets, find a silver coin, pinch it. That morning I'm up early. Off I go to an orchard and buy a basketful of cherries. I sit down in a ditch and begin to eat. I eat and eat, become bloated, get a stomachache, puke. Yes, I puked, Boss, and from then on was saved from cherries. I couldn't even look at them again. I became a free man. From then on, every time I saw a cherry I would say, "I don't need you! I did the same with wine, the same with cigarettes. I still drink, still smoke, but the moment I want to cut them, I do so ”whapp! with a knife. I'm not dominated by passion. The same with patriotism. I craved, gorged, puked, escaped. And women? I asked with a laugh. Their turn will come, damn them! But not until I'm seventy. He thought a moment, considering this insufficient. Eighty, he corrected himself. You laugh, Boss, and can continue if you wish. But that's how people liberate themselves. Listen to me: they liberate themselves by being rakes, not monks. And you: how will you get free of the Devil if you don't become Devil and a half?
Have you never heard of that skirt-chasing ancient god who never left a single woman in the world unsatisfied? I've heard a bit about him. It seems that he dyed his beard, tattooed hearts and mermaids on his arms, apparently masqueraded as a bull, swan, ram, donkey, whatever suited the appetite (if you'll excuse me saying so) of each and every slut. Please indulge me by telling me his name. I imagine you're talking about Zeus. How did you remember him? God bless his soul!
The pen. So the world falls into the hands of pen pushers. Those who live the mysteries lack time and those who don't lack time don't live the mysteries. Got it? What about Zeus? Stop changing the subject. Oh, the poor fellow! said he his successor, Christ. Seeing the holy mess the former god was in, he proclaimed, Steer clear of women!
Then, clutching his mustache, he finally declared, That's raw, uncooked stuff: meat fit for a schoolmaster, a mind fit for the same. Pardon me, Boss, but no matter what I say to you, it goes to waste. But why? I protested. I do understand,
I have slaughtered, robbed, burned villages, raped women, wiped out households. Why? Supposedly because they were Bulgarians or Turks. Damn you to hell, you swine! I often say to myself, and give myself the fuck you sign. Damn you! You nitwit! Well, I've really learned something. Now I look at people and say, This one is a good person, that one a bad person. It doesn't matter whether he's a Bulgarian or a Greek. To me they're both the same. The only thing I ask now is whether he's good or bad. And the older I get, yes, by the bread I eat, it seems to me that I'll begin not to ask that either. Bah, who cares if they're good or bad? I pity them all. When I see someone, my guts split apart even if I pretend not to give a damn. Look here, I say: this poor devil eats, drinks, loves, fears, has his God and his Devil; he, too, will kick the bucket and be laid out dead as a doornail underground to be eaten by worms. Poor miserable devil! We're brothers, all of us. Food for worms! And if it's a woman, then by God I start weeping. Your Excellency teases me every now and then about loving women. Damn it, how can I keep from loving them? They're such weak creatures, don't have an inkling of what's happening to them, and if you take hold of them by the breast they all at once open every household door and surrender themselves to you. Another time when I had entered a Bulgarian village, a wretched village notable, a Greek, betrayed me and they surrounded the house where I'd found lodging. I flew out onto the balcony, crept from tiled rooftop to tiled rooftop,it was nighttime, with a moon, then jumped from flat roof to flat roof like a cat, to escape. But they spotted my shadow, climbed up onto the rooftops, and I'm strewn with rifle fire. So what do I do? I tumble down into a courtyard where a Bulgarian woman was sleeping. She jumps up in her nightdress, sees me, begins to open her mouth to scream, but I reach out, say, Good grief, quiet! and grab her breast. She turns pale, stoops, whispers to me, Come inside so they won't see us. I go inside. Are you Greek? she asks. Yes, Greek. Don't give me away. I took her around the waist. She said nothing. I slept with her, my heart trembling with the pleasure. Hey, just look, e, you fool; she's a human being, a human being.
He once said to me, Half-finished jobs, conversations, sins, and virtues are what have brought the world to its present mess. Reach the end, everyone! Strike; win the fight! God detests the half-Devil more than the Devil-in-chief.
I said nothing. To say yes to necessity, transubstantiating the unavoidable into one's own free will, is perhaps our only path to deliverance. I knew this, and for that reason said nothing.
What you need to learn, dear savant, is that no greater pleasure than this exists for a woman. You should also know that a true woman is more pleased by the pleasure she gives to a man than by the pleasure she takes from him.
We all have demons, Zorba, so don't be frightened. The more we have, the better it is. It's sufficient if they all move toward the same goal via different routes.
Do it simply, so I can understand. As for me, until now I allowed my demons to be free and do as they pleased, to follow whatever path they liked. That's why some people call me dishonest, others honest, some a fool, others a wise Solomon. I am all of those and still more, a real Russian salad. So, enlighten me if you please. What goal? I believe, Zorba, but can be wrong, that human beings are of three kinds: those whose purpose, as they say, is to live their own lives - to eat, drink, kiss, grow rich, become famous; next are those whose purpose is to live not their own lives but the life of humanity as a whole, since they feel that all human beings are one and the same in their struggle to enlighten, to love, and benefit others; finally there are those whose purpose is to live the life of the entire universe, since all people, animals, vegetables, and stars are one and the same, one essence engaged in the same struggle's namely, to transubstantiate matter into spirit.
Hey, Boss, how about dancing everything you said, so I can understand it?
Thus whenever we are internally victorious, even though we are utterly defeated outwardly, the true human being feels indescribable pride and joy. The outer misfortune is transformed into the highest, most obdurate form of bliss.
Happiness means doing one's duty. The greater the difficulty in doing one's duty, the greater the happiness.
That's difficult, Boss, very difficult. What's needed in this instance is folly. Do you hear? Folly! You need to go the whole hog. But you've got intelligence, and that will eat you up. Intelligence is a grocer. It keeps accounts, writes I gave this amount, got that amount, this amount the loss, that amount the gain. Intelligence is a good manager, you know, never putting everything on the line, always holding something back. It doesn't break the string, oh no! That louse holds it tightly in its hands; if the string slips away, intelligence is finished, done for, the bum! But tell me, for as long as it fails to break the string, what solid basis does life have? Chamomile, diluted chamomile. What's needed to turn the world upside down is rum!
The Lover of Life, the authentic, primordial, all-embracing Dancer, a man renowned for his robust exuberance, his vigor and vitality.