![]() ![]() The Colossus of Maroussi is an impressionist travelogue by American writer Henry Miller that was first published in 1941, by Colt Press of San Francisco. We must abandon the hard-fought trenches we have dug ourselves into and come out into the open, surrender our arms, our possessions, our rights as individuals, classes, nations, peoples." It's bombastic, to be sure, but it's also a reaction to events, a pained cry of: why can't we just act differently? It's an attempt to imagine a different, better world, and I was sympathetic to it, just as I was sympathetic to Miller's imagining of the Greek spirit he wanted to capture, a spirit that was as much a creature of his own mind as anything else. ![]() I can certainly understand why some readers will have no patience for passages such as: "It is not enough to overthrow governments, masters, tyrants: one must overthrow his own preconceived ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. Part travelogue, part diatribe, this is a book that's not going to be for everyone. Henry Miller travels to Greece, ostensibly to visit a Greek writer but really to reacquaint himself with the humanistic spirit he sees flowing from there-a life-affirming spirit that's the opposite of the impending death everywhere else. Dark forces are gathering across Europe, about to tear the continent apart in an unprecedented act of barbarity. ![]()
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