Un résidu de mon séjour en Grèce l'année passée, Les Lotophages a été écrit par le rare - au moins aujourd'hui - homme politique écrivain, Vassilis Vassilikos. Il y raconte dans un drôle de mélange l'histoire d'une ville sur une île grecque qui découvre le tourisme, les efforts des kamakias (dragueurs de touristes) d’être reconnu en tant que profession, et les efforts homme-femme plus généralement. Ceci fait un livre plein de cul mais aussi rempli des bons mots sur des relations intersexuelles ainsi qu'intéressant pour ceux peu au courant de l'histoire de la Grèce moderne (meme si The Third Wedding Wreath est une meilleure source de ce point de vue).
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2012
Monday, September 19, 2011
Christ Recrucified
Following my trip to Greece I am still reading up on the acquisitions I made in Greece. Nikos Kazantzakis' Christ Recrucified (or The Greek Passion it seems) provides a wonderful insight into Greek history and culture I found. It addresses at once Greek nationalism shaped against the backdrop of Ottoman colonialism and the role of the church in going against Christ's teachings and perpetuating the social caste system of the day.
The novel starts out with a number of villagers being named by the local notables to play Jesus, John, Peter, James, Maria Magdalena and Judas Iscariot in a reenactment of the crucification and following rise of Jesus Christ. The six chosen ones soon start taking their roles as laid out in the scripture a bit too seriously as far as the local aristocracy is concerned. Things deteriorate from there.
An interesting and gripping book with one downside to it. Much of the interior dialogue, characters' debate amongst each other as well as within each individual one is concentrated on issues of faith, I am undoubtedly far too cynic and atheist (or maybe: agnostic?) to be much drawn to these kind of topics. Kazantzakis reminded me of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in that sense, another novel of quality despite of its insistence on religion as the topic of choice.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Third Wedding Wreath
I thoroughly enjoy reading novels about the places that I visit, that I live in, I find it an extremely rewarding way of learning about the local/regional culture, political setting and history. That's why I bought Costas Taktsis' The Third Wedding Wreath during my recent sojourn in Greece. Taktsis tells the story of a woman's life, her three husbands, life during occupation and the civil war, her move from Thessaloníki to Athens, her children and family in the broadest sense. The Third Wedding Wreath really is the Buddenbrooks without the nostalgic glorious past, told from a female point of view and much, much more reflective of Greek culture and history.
I'd learned never to be a snob until I got to know a person's worth; and how can you get to know a person well if you don't have coffee together?
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Exarchia, Athens, Greece
I recently had the chance to spend ten days in Athens for professional reasons. So I tried to live like an Athenian for that period, hanging out in bars in Exarchia, working on my balcony overlooking the National Historical Museum, playing basketball in Lofos Strefi, having business coffee meetings in Kolonaki and, finally, going to an island for the weekend. I had the incredible luck of (semi-)knowing someone in Greece who really helped me out in finding a place and with whom it was furthermore (as I had suspected before initially) very enjoyable to hang out. So: thanks again. In general I feel like I managed to gain a much better understanding of Greece through my constant exposure to life in Greece as a Greek with no expat or even tourist aspect (granted: I did climb the Acropolis with 500 other foreigners) to take away from this impression.
What do I have to say about Greece then? A very positive experience in a country burdened with problems is how I could describe it in one sentence. People are friendly, I succeeded to integrate myself with local (Exarchia) basketball players after only a few days there, friends of the friends I had were extremely open and accommodating including when it comes to my complete lack of Greek-language capability. And in general it is very easy - if, as always, of course very limited - to get around in English.
Greek life-style is very laid-back. People eat and go out late, life in the city is really calm during the day for the most part, both clearly being related to the extreme heat (and I live in Tunis!). Yet, don't buy into the stereotypes, Greeks do work. What they (I am stereotyping here, please excuse) do seems to be dominated by a combination of odd jobs here and there, all relatively badly paid, if at all. I've met designers, architects and professional basketball players all of whom told me that they were being owed serious amounts of money (10k in one case).
Which gets us to the Greek problems then. Most glaring is the amount of people asking for a hand-out in the street, the junkies fixing out in the open in one of the most central neighborhoods of Athens, the police clad military-style guarding the border of Exarchia - where the anarchists kicked them out a few years ago - and the rest of the city. The irony of the latter is that most of the junkies are and most of the criminality everyone warned me about none of which I experienced though actually occurs just outside of Exarchia and thus behind (or in front) of the police curtain.
The main (and underlying) problem though is the economic situation. What can I even add to that discussion? The Greek government (and society) clearly lived above its means for a number of years and people are paying for it now (on a high level, but still). My main criticism doesn't lie so much with the harsh reforms, some of which are necessary but cruel others just plain pointless or at least ineffectual, but rather the lack of (true) European solidarity. Effectively European governments (especially Germany) are forcing Greece into a deflationary setting, with wages (and accordingly consumption) decreasing during a period where the government has put stringent measures of austerity in effect. In other words Greece for years to come will suffer from low growth rates and high (especially for young(er) people) unemployment. All this while inflationary measures in the core of the Eurozone (again: mainly Germany) would bring about the same result (full or semi-debt repayment) in a much less cruel manner. Let's just hope that the planned reforms will actually structurally effect change and not just be limited to punishing pensioners, cab drivers and public sector workers without creating a better-working system at the same time. I have my doubts, but as one says in German: Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt (hope dies last).
What do I have to say about Greece then? A very positive experience in a country burdened with problems is how I could describe it in one sentence. People are friendly, I succeeded to integrate myself with local (Exarchia) basketball players after only a few days there, friends of the friends I had were extremely open and accommodating including when it comes to my complete lack of Greek-language capability. And in general it is very easy - if, as always, of course very limited - to get around in English.
Greek life-style is very laid-back. People eat and go out late, life in the city is really calm during the day for the most part, both clearly being related to the extreme heat (and I live in Tunis!). Yet, don't buy into the stereotypes, Greeks do work. What they (I am stereotyping here, please excuse) do seems to be dominated by a combination of odd jobs here and there, all relatively badly paid, if at all. I've met designers, architects and professional basketball players all of whom told me that they were being owed serious amounts of money (10k in one case).
Which gets us to the Greek problems then. Most glaring is the amount of people asking for a hand-out in the street, the junkies fixing out in the open in one of the most central neighborhoods of Athens, the police clad military-style guarding the border of Exarchia - where the anarchists kicked them out a few years ago - and the rest of the city. The irony of the latter is that most of the junkies are and most of the criminality everyone warned me about none of which I experienced though actually occurs just outside of Exarchia and thus behind (or in front) of the police curtain.
The main (and underlying) problem though is the economic situation. What can I even add to that discussion? The Greek government (and society) clearly lived above its means for a number of years and people are paying for it now (on a high level, but still). My main criticism doesn't lie so much with the harsh reforms, some of which are necessary but cruel others just plain pointless or at least ineffectual, but rather the lack of (true) European solidarity. Effectively European governments (especially Germany) are forcing Greece into a deflationary setting, with wages (and accordingly consumption) decreasing during a period where the government has put stringent measures of austerity in effect. In other words Greece for years to come will suffer from low growth rates and high (especially for young(er) people) unemployment. All this while inflationary measures in the core of the Eurozone (again: mainly Germany) would bring about the same result (full or semi-debt repayment) in a much less cruel manner. Let's just hope that the planned reforms will actually structurally effect change and not just be limited to punishing pensioners, cab drivers and public sector workers without creating a better-working system at the same time. I have my doubts, but as one says in German: Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt (hope dies last).
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