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THE WEEKEND NEOS KOSMOS | SATURDAY 28 MARCH 2015

DIGITAL.NEOSKOSMOS.COM

NEWS
OPINION VRASIDAS KARALIS

The new translation of Nikos

Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek
Amidst the crisis that has
devastated Greece, Greek
culture must celebrate an
event that makes it deeply
proud: the new translation
by Peter Bien of Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek.
The publication of the
novel's complete text offers the opportunity to
re-assess Kazantzakis as
a prose writer, revisit his
work afresh and reconsider his overall achievement.
The many problems with
the previous translation by
Carl Wildman (published in
cheap pocket editions since
the fifties) were becoming
increasingly obvious, despite the continuing popularity of the publication.
As Roderick Beaton and
Dimitris Tziovas have
shown, Wildman had in
many ways 'adapted' the text
in order to make it acceptable to the reading audiences of the global Anglophone
book market. Wildman obviously based his text on the
French translation, omitted important passages,
censored others, rephrased
whole paragraphs or finally
totally disregarded the 'phil-

osophical frame' that keeps the

narrative together.
Peter Bien's new translation restores Kazantzakis'
authentic text to its stylistic
richness, artistic unity and
mythopoeic completeness.
Bien has already translated
other works by Kazantzakis
(his translation of Report to
Greco is a masterful work of
linguistic force on its own
merit) and he has published
extensively in his oeuvre. As
a systematic translator and
interpreter he knows Kazantzakis' work intimately and engages in depth with the intricacies of its structure.
The new translation offers
the opportunity to revisit Kazantzakis as a prose writer,
something which has been
forgotten under the different
rubrics of Kazantzakis the
philosopher, the theologian
or the Greek. Bien brings out
successfully the orality of the
text, its essential dialogism,
which makes the text what
the intention of its writer
was, 'a platonic dialogue'.
Bien worked with the nuances of a dramaturgic text, with a
highly performative language
and narrative pace focusing on

strong theatricality, almost in

the form of dramatic monologue. He has also located the
precise habitus of Kazantzakis' references; he understands
his Eastern Orthodox mystical language, so successfully
fused with Roman Catholic
spirituality, Oriental agnosticism and transcultural philosophical conceptualisations.
It is indeed the complexity of
Kazantzakis' language, its semantic density and creative
appropriation of other textual
formations, that make his texts
significant as works of prose.
Bien's prose captures Kazantzakis' struggle to devise
a linguistic idiom in which
modernist experimentation
and classical narrative realism would fuse into a textual
palimpsest of sometimes conflicting verbal patterns. This
was the first attempt, quite
late in Kazantzakis' life, to
write a novel in Greek; a careful reading shows how hesitant and how exploratory his
language is - yet it is simultaneously extremely refined,
much more distilled than the
idioms of contemporary writers like Fotis Kontoglou, Stratis Myrivilis or even Miha-

lis Karayatsis. His language

in Zorba follows the pattern
of his travel writings, lucid,
mostly paratactic and highly
emotive, spiced with sardonic
humour and unexpected details which give the text its
psychological complexity.
Like the later novels Christ
Recrucified, Freedom and Death
and The Last Temptation, Zorba is a polysemic narrative
structure precisely because
of its linguistic diversity; for
example, really admirable is
the incorporation of quotes
from ancient writers into a
demotic text and their constant juxtaposition with vernacular proverbs. Kazantzakis
is also the master of quoting
verbatim from other writers;
and he employs their words in
order to indicate the implied
philosophical scripts that informed his own writing. Plato, Buddha, Dante, Gorky, or
negatively Mallarme, and the
quote from Marcus Aurelius
(p. 258) become the signposts
pointing towards his distinct
intellectual and aesthetical
horizons much more than the
demonic Nietzschean character implied by the film or a
conventional interpretation

of his work. Indeed, through

the new translation we finally
see clearly the stoic, melancholic and bittersweet disposition that permeates the book,
a book of ghosts and shadows
and less of exuberant dances
and uninhibited sexualities.
Zorba is also a self-conscious
and self-reflexive work, as in
the end of the book we learn
that what we were reading
from the beginning was how
it came to be written. Gregory Jusdanis has explored the
structure of Zorba as a 'postmodernist' artefact, and this
translation makes obvious the
diversity of genres employed
by Kazantzakis in order to focus the attention of his readers on the process of its writing and to its contextual realities (so superbly reconstructed
in the translated prologue).
The afterword by Nikki Stavrou also sheds ample light on
the writing of the book and
its position within the work
of Kazantzakis.
The new translation brings
out all these hidden subtexts
which mark the beginning
of the gradual consolidation
of Kazantzakis' prose style
to its full development with

his masterful autobiography Report to Greco, a book

standing at the same level
as Sartre's Words or Nabokov's Speak, Memory.
Peter Bien's translation
is a landmark contribution
not simply to the study of
Kazantzakis' most popular
book but to the better understanding of the development of literary modernism
in the European periphery
and the reconsiderations it
inaugurated.
* The new translation of
Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba
the Greek by Peter Bien
through Simon & Schuster
Paperbacks New York, 2015.

OPINION THEO THEOPHANOUS

We need cool heads in Link compo dispute

Many in the community
have sympathy with the
Andrews government's
argument that it was unconscionable for the previous government to sign
contracts on the eve of an
election to build the East
West Link project.
It was even more objectionable for them to sign a
letter guaranteeing exorbitant compensation, irrespective of the outcome of
legal or other action that
might stop the project.
But they did, so what
should the Andrews government do now?
The first thing to understand is that by not proceeding with the project, the
government would not in
strict legal terms be breaking the contract - if it negotiates an agreed compensation payment as allowed

for under the contract. But the

compensation payable under
the contract, according to the
consortium, is a minimum
payment of $550 million.
The government is in a bind.
It's understandable that it
may consider legislation to
overcome the question of
compensation. But is such
action warranted or desirable? Legislation could lead
to costly and protracted legal
challenges. More importantly, it could affect Victoria's
AAA credit rating if the ratings agencies discount credit
worthiness for perceived sovereign risk.
If legislation did lead to a
reduction to say AA+, Victoria would face the prospect of
paying an additional 30 basis
points on new and maturing
borrowings.
Given Victoria has $22 billion in debts and wants to

borrow to build new infrastructure, any possible gains

from legislation would be
more than wiped out over
time. Prime Minister Tony
Abbott added to that possibility when he said any such
legislation would damage
Australia's international financial reputation. The credit
ratings agencies would have
heard him loud and clear.
Is there a way through? It's
been suggested the consortium be offered an alternative
construction project. As a former major projects minister,
that sounds good in theory
but is fraught in practice.
There are serious probity
principles about open tenders
that would have to be overcome even if an alternative
project can be found. It may
be possible to deal with these
by way of a value for money
evaluation process, but as Ab-

bott found in the submarine

issue, there is a big difference
between an open tender and
an evaluation process. Satisfying the community that
value for money has been obtained with the latter process
is not so easy.
And while it appears the
members of the consortium
tasked with building the project, Lend Lease, Bouygues
and Acciona, are willing to
negotiate on another project, the financiers are not
as amenable. They are not
persuaded by concerns they
may miss out on future government contracts. They believe they have legal rights to
compensation and they want
to be paid. There are many
projects in Australia and the
world they can invest in once
they are paid.
The consortium builders
who want a future in Victoria

need to rein in the financiers

and have a sensible conversation with the government,
rather than gamble that it
will cave in to their demands.
Part of the discussion should
be to identify another project
and have a comprehensive
evaluation process, perhaps
overseen by the auditor general, to ensure value. Many
worthwhile projects could be
considered.
The premier has opened the
door to the construction of
the western part of the East
West Link.
There is the completion of
the ring road from Greensborough to EastLink, the
Western Distributor and the
50 level crossing removals,
as well as the Metro rail upgrade. Any one could be considered as substitutes in negotiations to avoid the payment of compensation.

The federal government

can help by allowing the redirection of the $3 billion of
funding to any of these projects, including metro rail.
The Victorian government negotiators have
put a strong case for only
the legitimate costs of the
consortium to be paid. Let's
hope the consortium will
negotiate reasonable compensation or that a carefully considered alternative project is agreed upon.
Legislation should not
be considered unless the
government is confident
Victoria's credit rating and
future investment here will
not be affected. In today's
world of shifting global investment options, that's a
big call indeed.
* Theo Theophanous is a political commentator and former Labor minister.