The is something about literature that allows us to understand in a way our eyes cannot always. Perhaps it simply allows us to first see what is possible to understand, doing the hard work for the eyes and mind to follow. When in foreign lands I enjoy reading books by native authors or sometimes those by foreigners set in such places. The foreigners can frustrate as they show they have learnt another version of a place to you but this can be important to realise there are more versions than your own. Natives of the land you are in though will always understand their own people in a way you simply cannot. You only have a formative childhood once, an adult visitor will never be able to truly replicate such a learning experience and understand a people as their own. As I am in Greece then I shall read something Greek. While it is easy to fall for the classics, two thousand years later the Greeks are a very different people and with that comes a necessity to understand now and not then.
Nikos Kazantzakis is probably most famous for Zorba The Greek and The Last Temptation Of Christ, at least with non-Greek readers and likely because films were made of the two in English. The Fratricides deals with the Greek Civil War which took place almost directly after the Second World War between the Communists and the Fascists – the Redhoods and the Blackhoods. It follows the fighting over a small miserable village in the mountains of Epirus and revolves around the local Priest Father Yanaros stuck in the middle. He chooses to be neither red nor black and instead laments the killing of all. In his eyes we are all brothers. It is an indictment of both sides as they destroy Greece in the name of Greece and for Greece, as well as an indictment of the Greek Orthodox Church for the role they played and their heartless corruption.
Nobody is a winner in a war which is being fought for an illusion, fought for someone else’s power. It is ultimately an intense and sad story in which unsurprisingly everyone loses and everyone, including Father Yanaros, is broken and fallible in someway or another. He may be incorruptible but he too makes mistakes. Kazantzakis exposes the grim realities of war and especially civil war, the utterly pointless and divisive nature of such beasts. He deals with the real social and religious problems of the time with a deep understanding of both. Importantly while this may be set seventy years ago, if such issues are resolved through violence and hate, he makes it clear they are never resolved. Something modern generations could learn from and continue not to. It may not be from ancient times but like those it continues in what feels like another chapter in the archetype Greek story, that of the never-ending tragedy of life.
Observations and Misunderstandings 