The Last Temptation of Christ

THE GREEK WRITER Nikos Kazantzakis typifies that mixture of driven, autodidactic erudition and primitive vitality that one often finds among Eastern European literati. Frenziedly seeking ultimate truths, he eclectically absorbed everything from Buddhism to Bergson (with whom he studied) and traveled restlessly across the world in search of reconciliation of our--or his--animal and angelic natures. This duality is portrayed in Zorba the Greek as two ...