Monday, October 06, 2008

Zorba the Greek

One of the lesser known museums in Heraklion is the Historical Museum of Crete. This has modern history of the island and most notably the library of Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek. My only knowledge of this was from clips of the film based on the book, with Anthony Quinn dancing. An excellent multimedia display shows excerpts of films based on Kazantzakis work and relates this to the books and plays. The theme from the film "Zorbas" (Zorba's dance by Mikis Theodorakis), was performed at the wedding I attended at Palaios Panteleimonas.

The museum also has a pleasant cafe courtyard.

1 comment:

Tom Worthington said...

Noticed a copy of the English translation of Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis, at the local library and read it over the holidays. The author, like the fictional narrator in the book was born in Crete. The semi-fictional Zorba was Macedonian, who spent some time in a village near Mount Olympus and learned music from a Turk in Thessaloniki. The book reflects the tensions of the region in the early to mid 20th Century, as shown so well at the Historical Museum of Crete.