TRAVELING ENGLAND

Written at the dawn of World War II, Traveling: England, may well be the most emotive and lyrical of all the travel journals of Nikos Kazantzakis. It is a beautifully authored travelogue, where the history and traditions of the past go hand in hand with the vibrant descriptions of the present. History, museums, Art, economy, society, industry, Shakespeare weave the extraordinary nation that is England, through the tender eyes and the mystical pen of Nikos Kazantzakis.

“In the soul of even the most timid and practical Englishman there is a little window looking out over the ocean. Mysterious charm, irresistible voices, a romantic longing to get on board and start an adventure. Since that night when the dreaded Armada crashed upon England’s rocky shores, the Englishman has possessed the sea. It is his. He has fought long, suffered long to possess it, and now he will not let it go. The sea is the Englishmen's largest graveyard: ‘Every wave covers an Englishman.’”

 

The great Cretan writer, with the memories of the conqueror's boot on the soil of his own country all too vivid, strolls across the whole of England, observes, criticizes and narrates, and we follow step by ecstatic step, dazzled by his lyricism and his unique, prophetic intuition.

 

“How can you conquer a country? There is only one way: to find its meaning. So let us try to find the meaning of England.”