Manolios placed his hand on the knee of priest Fotis, who, absorbed in his meditations, said nothing.I'm learning that Kazantzakis' books are all the same. This would be a bigger problem if they weren't as good as they are. But it still lessens his standing a little. But if he is a man who was listening to what his pen was saying, he shouldn't care too much about his standing.
How ought we to love God, Father? He asked in a whisper.
By loving men, my son.
And how ought we to love men?
By trying to guide them along the right path.
And what is the right path?
The one that rises.
Why do you stay here, you who say you love Me, why do you stay here, nice and quiet and with your arms folded, resting? You eat, you drink, you read at your ease the words which I have spoken, you weep at the story of My crucifixion, and then you go to bed and sleep. Aren’t you ashamed? Is that how you love Me? Do you call that love? Get up!
My heart’s got to overflow! If man’s heart doesn’t overflow either with love or with anger, nothing gets done in the world, you can take it form me!
Woe to the Lycovrissi who eats his fill without thinking of the children on the Sarakina. Every human body starving on our land is tied round the neck of each one of us and drags us down to Hell.
God distributes wealth in accordance with hidden laws which are His own. The justice of God is one thing, that of men another. God has made the rich and the poor. Woe to him who dares disturb the order; he is infringing the will of God! Impertinent Manolios, I repent of having given you permission to speak.
All the souls in the world, priest Fotis took him up, are hung round the neck of each man. So don’t make distinction between ‘yours’ and ‘mine’, Father.
Yes, we’re afraid, too, replied Yannakos, but we pretend to be brave, there you are! How can I explain it to you when it’s all muddled up in my head? Look here: I pretend to be brave and my heart beats like mad. But little by little—it’s curious!—by dint of pretending to be brave, I get there! See what I mean, old man? What have your books got to say about it? To tell you the truth, I don’t understand too well! I’m an ass!
We’re not complaining, priest Fotis answered, rising. That’s what it means to be a man: to suffer, undergo injustices and struggle without giving ground! We shall not give ground, Michelis. Tomorrow I’ll go to the town and struggle.
The face they’ve got to act the Apostles! He kept saying. I’m better than they, savage though I am. Because I’ve suffered, I have, more than them, in my house and out of my house and in myself. It’s when I’m alone I weep; they weep when everyone can see. I know what love is, the sort that makes the whole village laugh at me; when they lose anyone, they’re happy and joke about it. They’re disgusting; plague upon them! One’s got his donkey, t’other his café, t’other his rich father and his Mariori. I’ve got nothing. There’s times I’d like to set fire to my shop, chuck my wife and children out and kill the woman I love. Well, which of us is Judas? Them, that have all they want, them, the satisfied, or me?
Listen, he shouted, try your nonsense on others; don’t do what you did last time, don’t ape the saints, d’you hear? Otherwise the Devil’s going to get you. Understand? A poor innocent like you, rob, kill, set fire to things? Try it on others, I tell you: you won’t fool me, my dear, see? Even if the Devil were in it, I wouldn’t believe you!
His brand of Christianity is the Christianity of zealots. I don't agree with some pieces of it; I wonder if he doesn't border on blasphemy sometimes when he trumpets the glory of God and His creation. But surely it's no less blasphemous than the dusty pallor and boredom with which the majority of us treat God and His creation.
His stories are stories of miracles and wars. There is no smallness in them. The good is a force so strong and righteous it feels sickly (probably because humans cannot do justice to the virtue he is trying to capture) and his evil seems so unreasonable as to be quite simple. The moments when he gives us his evil characters doing something good are some of the most powerful in the book.
But, as with St. Francis and Zorba I have to admit that I have learned good things that will become a part of who I am. Take the road that rises.
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