Zorba The Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

This one is a bit spotty for me. I listened to the audio from Audible (and the narrator is amazingly good) for a IRL book club. But I missed the book club with 5 hours left to go and then didn't get back to it until later.

Zorba is both endearing and damn annoying. An older man, he fancies himself a ladies man, who declares that if you just go up to a woman and squeeze her breast, she will be yours. *eyeroll* In the author's world, and Zorba's, this is apparently true. Madame Hortense falls head over heels for Zorba but, it seems to be more of a case of the old lady's loneliness than anything to do with Zorba himself. Zorba shows interest and beds her and she wants marriage and stability. Their back-and-forth is heartbreaking.

Zorba pairs up with the unnamed narrator, I'll call him George, and they head off to re-open an old lignite mine. George is the boss and Zorba supervises the works and works himself to the bone. George is more of an intellectual who wants to finish his manuscript on Buddha while Zorba and the men do the backbreaking work.

I'll say the two end up on several adventures, including setting a monastery on fire (or at least heavily encouraging a crazy monk to do it) but adventures isn't the right word for these two. Joined at the hip, it's their combined lives becoming one.

In the end, I can see why this has been called one of the great friendships ever written.