Kazantzakis composes a novel of the search for the “true meaning of life”. On a deserted beach in Crete, an intellectual (the alter ego of the writer) and Alexis Zorbas, a passionate lover of life, ‘debate’ on it. Besides it is the story of God and Men, Love and Death, the purpose of human existence. It is an epic tale of human adventure, similar to those of Don Quixote and Gargantua, which combines grotesque and comic narrative forms with tragic.
Soloup’s graphic novel “Zorbas” does not ignore the global
reception of the novel, due mainly to its film adaptation by
- Cacoyiannis (1964). Alexis Zorbas after all is identified with Anthony Quinn and the stereotype of the extroverted, passionate and on occasion philosophical “Greek”, dancing Mikis Theodorakis’ “syrtaki”. Nevertheless the graphic novel avoids to reproduce the above stereotypes. It focuses
on Kazantzakis’ novel in order to illuminate how the ideas of Nietzsche, Bergson, Buddha, Rodin, DaVinci and others, that run through “Zorba, the Greek”, move the author’s inspiration and pen.
DIOPTRA, 2023, 520 P., 17X24
