Saint Francis

Rating:
Summary: Grim
Review: I have read a lot of books on St. Francis of Assisi, and viewed several films. Kazantzakis presents a "fictional re-creation" St. Francis as an aescetic who travels a journey that few of us would want to take. An aescetic with a disgust for anything having to do with "the flesh" Francis suffers throughout most of the novel from malnutrition, dehydration, and a collection of maladies brought on by the neglect and abuse of his own body, the "temple of the Holy Spirit." This form of mortification of the body has thankfully been abandoned, but was considered a path to salvation coming out of the Dark Ages. His fear/avoidance and mysognistic view of women was unfortunate, and I think this perhaps was a bit overblown and not well researched by Kazantzakis, for I have not found this pathological view in any other writings about St. Francis.
For a deeper understanding of St. Francis of Assisi, and the wide attraction of this most famous saint, please read G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis. Don't get me wrong, I admire and love St. Francis and the revolution he began in Christianity, but I disliked his portrayal by Kazantzakis.

Rating:
Summary: Being with St. Francis
Review: I read this book a year ago while on Spring break with my husband and two little daughters. It completely took me away and put me on a higher spiritual level that lasted a long time. Kazantzakis somehow captured the essence of what St. Francis was all about...St. Francis was a man who truly tried to do what Jesus said to do, sell everything you have, give it to the poor, pick up His cross daily and follow Him. The feeling I get when I read the book was one of actually being with St. Francis and understanding why so many followed him and liked him. I am in the middle of reading it again (another Spring break!), and I see why I loved it so much the first time. It's a great novel, even if you aren't a Christian, because the characters and the writing are so good, but being a Christian adds a spiritual level that makes me want to read this book over and over, even though I think I am so far from where St. Francis was! It makes one think about what Jesus really said and what it would be like to TRULY do what He said! I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Saint Francis: This novel will change your life for good
Review: Saint Francis is a passionate and highly personal vision of the life of Francis of Assisi, the poor man of God, by the late Nikos Kazantzakis, author of The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1958), The Last Temptation of Christ (1960), Zorba the Greek (1953), The Greek Passion (1954) and Freedom or Death (1956). (Note: dates are those of the first American editions.)

Nikos Kazantzakis' books transcend the usual limitations of the novel: they go beyond the mere telling of an exciting story and enter the sublime world of the spirit. Their themes are powerful and heroic, for above all they are concerned with the struggle between good and evil in man's soul, and with the ability of ordinary men, at all times in history, to leave behind their daily occupations and their pleasures and to dedicate themselves to a noble ideal, often at the cost of their lives.

In FREEDOM OR DEATH, Kazantzakis wrote of the mortal combat between Greek and Turk on his native island of Crete; in the THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, he wrote of the Saviour's spiritual passion and agony as He prepares His own martyrdom. In SAINT FRANCIS, Kazantzakis has re-created the story of Christianity's best-known, most human, and most beloved saint -- Francis of Assisi.

It is a historical novel, and the reader will grasp in it all the miseries and glory of medieval Italy. But Kazantzakis has not limited himself to the retelling of this well-known story. He has tried to show us Saint Francis as a person, tempted by the life that is offered to him and the comforts of his home, but driven by his own restless spirit to rise above the level of his fellow men and to assert his belief in goodness and submission. Kazantzakis' Francis is not the calm and undisturbed saint of legend, preaching to the animals. His is a man, tempted, weary, but searching for spiritual peace in a world of evil and war.

Kazantzakis has made his narrator, Saint Francis' companion, a cheerful monk, happy with wine and good food, weak in the ways of the flesh, but faithful to the master he cannot fully understand. Through his eyes we see the endless strife between the flesh and the spirit, the bitter wanderings over Europe and the Holy Land, the struggle against complacent and entrenched men in the Church that finally led to the founding of the Franciscan order.

This is the story of Saint Francis as only Nikos Kazantzakis could tell it.

It is a book that cannot fail to move everyone who reads it.