The Colossus of Maroussi
7 March 2007
Which Greece do you conjure in the instantaneous drop of the name? Is it the Greece of mythical proportions, wrought and re-wrought with the passing of centuries and changing tides of thought? Is it the Greece which beacons with white beaches and deep blue, the deepest blue for it is colored with a mixture of sky, sea, and sun streaming heat waves through your body? Do you think tourist trap? A country alive in its traditions? Alive and defended against the ever creeping fog of similarization. Is it the Greece, child of the Mediterranean, whose rich food and smoldering-eyed women allow you to pass, seamlessly, between one world and the next?
Personally, I do not know Greece. I have never landed my feet on its loamy soil nor have my fingers grasped at its being in attempt at an arching understanding. I have not read Homer, I do not pretend to know the teachings of Socrates or the stories of the Byzantine. Henry Miller himself admits of his own faintness of knowldge. He departs from the shores of France on a blind whim at the twilight of an outbreaking war. He departs in search of the peaceful and peace he uncovers. Henry Miller writes to us of a Greece not yet known and a Greece that may never be again. Though it is not necessarily of Greece that I am writing. “Voyages are accomplished inwardly, and the most hazardous ones, needless to say, are made without moving from the spot.”
With that introduction in mind I am taking a couple paragraphs to write of a Greece I have known to which I am returning. Though this Greece is called Rome and is, in passing, fraternally similar, though that is not the reason for this I am writing. Recently, there has come into my possession a one-way ticket, my second mind you, for I am well aware of its weight and meaning. Not to mention, the romanticism involved in the purchase of such a fare. The destination reads Rome and even though I can not hold a tangible ticket for such frivolities have been discontinued in lieu of more technological means, I can still feel that city I have wrapped my fingers around, a seed clenched in the palm of my hand. In the section previous I wrote of Henry Miller coming into my life in the midst of a great upheaval, so this is synonymous to my experience of Rome.
I have compared Rome to my image of a lover. Right from the start I was showered with abundance, as feathered kisses brushed like eylashes along my body, with an instinct for support if only I could bend to its will. “I’ll bend, I’ll break,” and so an agreement was struck. At every twist of one via or another I was brought face to face with a new reflection of myself, staring intensely back at me. But who am I? “Every discovery is mysterious in that it reveals what is so unexpectedly immediate, so close, so long and intimately known.” Rome helped me to shake free all confines previously imposed, such as money and work, time and society. I created my own boundaries and then crumbled them by my own force of will, but enough about me.
Greece is Rome and Rome is Greece and Henry Miller is lying naked on a beach in Corfu, where the sand glistens as so many individual mirrors, a shower of pinpricks of light sent from above. He is fearlessly straddling a cliff high above the waves breaking rhythmically against the shore. His history might be cause for one to believe he is pounding his chest in a mighty act of defiance, but no, this is Henry Miller and he is in Greece. He sits, ever so quietly in a state of prolonged meditation, with every breath he is becoming closer to the universal. “. . .in the great peace that came over me I heard the heart of the world beat. I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.” This the prevalent presentiments which weave through and create the body of the text. Diffused through this muslin sheath of his words is a sonorous and golden glow which undulates over all characters and all places, an effect of which only Miller in such an uplifted state is capable of.
Henry Miller walks through the temples and the tombs of the gods. In Agememnon’s tomb he experienced an awakening of sorts, as if he was gifted a shaft of light and within that shaft of light all was revealed. He was shown the world for what it is, what it has been and what potentially will be. He was brought back to ‘human proportions,’ eager to accept, poised to give anything that was asked. It is this life altering event around which the whole book pivots. I don’t doubt the impact and reality of this for a moment, as he himself does of his readers. It was the gods who spoke to him from a realm unknown. They told him fabulous stories of human gods and godly humans, he did not doubt them for a moment. “I say there were gods who roamed everywhere, men like us in form and substance, but free, electrically free.” The pure belief that such a grandiose image is possible is to create such an occurrence.
The Colossus of Maroussi can be considered a travel book in the most expansive sense of the word. To travel, to move from one location to the next, is in itself nothing. It is an abrupt and realized change which frightens people into remaining stationary, whether mentally or physically. Traveling is merely a can-opener applied to ones very being, causing ones conception to rise to the purely receptive, for it is a swirl of stimuli that arise as soon as one does not know where in fact one is. I do believe that one day I will travel without moving from one spot, but for now I will joyfully take my suitcases and the luxurious rapidity of air flights and go with it, because that is all I know how to do.
If it is convincing you need for an invocation of departure defined either way the choice is your own, then I highly recommend this book to you. The Colossus of Maroussi is nothing if not another implement of the prodigal can-opener. Its possibilities extend to the revelation of the contents of every bare soul, including your own. It is nothing if not a finely executed anthem for the life abundant. Glory! Glory! Hosanna in the highest!
Why don’t they? Because nobody can enjoy the experience he desires until he is ready for it. People seldom mean what they say. Anyone who says he is burning to do something other then what he is doing or be somewhere other than where he is is lying to himself. To desire is not merely to wish. To desire is to become that which one essentially is.
[Listen to Henry Miller read from the Colossus of Maroussi and Black Spring. Awesome.]
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