THE EPIC VISION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 774, 21 May 1954, Page 26

THE EPIC VISION

CHRIST RECRUCIFIED, by Nik Kazantzakis; Bruno Cassirer, English price 15/-. THE REFUGE, by Seaforth Mackenzie; Angus and Robertson, N.Z. price 16/-. THE HOUSE THAT NINO BUILT, by Giovanni Guareschi; Victor Gollancz, English _ price 10/6. THAT YEW TREE'S SHADE, by sie Hare; Faber and Faber, English price *"HRIST RECRUCIFIED reveals * Niko Kazantzakis as an unmistakably great novelist. His epic vision comprehends primitive force, bitterness and compassion, coarse realism and lyricism. In a Greek village under Turkish dbodmination, several peasants aré chosen to enact: the characters in the traditional Passion play. When to the village comes a caravan of starving refugees from Turkish persecution, they are hated and rejected by the villagers, but the "Christ" and His "Apostles," influenced by their roles, espouse, their sufferings, Hatred and jealousy reach their climax on Christmas Day, when a dreadful real Passion is enacted. A massive, searing book, genuinely tragic, not without artistic tact, but never contrived, Christ Recrucified is worth any ten of the polite pieces of mincing tushery England supplies nowadays. A study in the Conrad manner, The Refuge begins with the discovery of the body of Irma Martin, a refugee exCommunist, in Sydney Harbour. Lloyd Fitzherbert, a crime reporter, tells how ‘e protected and married Irma, and of the emotional tensions which led to her death. The book has distinction; Mr. Mackenzie writes with intelligence and sensitivity. But his story is over-long. Its best feature is its description of war-time Sydney. including several tart paces on the American invasion. ‘ Giovanni Guareschi’s collection of sketches about his own family is neither (continued on next page)

PROFESSOR E. M. BLAIKLOCK, whose new séries of talks, The World of the Early Church, will start from 1YC at 8.35 p.m. on Thursday, May 27. In these talks Professor Blaiklock gives a picture of the world of the first three centuries as the Christians saw it, with its problems, its opportunities, its hostilities and the ferment of | its ‘thought. Professor Blaiklock says: "I want to show something of the siznificance of Christianity in the first centuries of our era as an_ historical phenomenon ... to give you some idea of the strength of the Church, its spread in society, and the measure of its influence. I shall try to throw some light on the great controversies of the first and second centuries, and I shall seek to trace the history of the clash with the Government of the Empire which led to the persecutions." Professor Blaiklock’s eaflier series, "The World to Which Christ Came," has already been heard from several stations. o_O