Review and presentation on the latest book by Kostas Arkoudeas “Dangerous Authors”, Kastaniotis Publishing House
I won’t wear you out by analyzing Kostas Arkoudeas’s work as a whole. I will cut to the chase… that which still is warm and fragrant. From the very first pages I had the taste and the scents of the 50s. The UCLA underground library that smelled like ink…, the same library in which Bradbury was rummaging the volumes in a frenzy…, a scent of dust and paper…, all those that give a sense of warmth and coziness to the reader.
I may have been born decades later, as well as the author after all, but we who love books and knowledge, know so well what it means to be transported into other eras and living into them. What it means to be in touch with great creators and learn everything for them. Kostas Arkoudeas brings them so close to us, that we come to feel them as uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. All that, makes their work more familiar for the coming generations, as we appreciate more every word we read in their books at some point.
Beyond the life of the “Authors” though, our writer performs a great historical work. By exposing all the historical elements that influenced the great writers (the dangerous ones) and all the facts that succor during the conception and writing of their works, in a straight forward and comprehensive manner, lay the facts such as the death of Hypatia of Alexandria accessible to younger people and we all know that they’d rarely choose a history book under titles such as “Hypatia” or “The biography (of someone)” or “Conspiracies during WW2”. “Dangerous authors” have therefore a double significance as they bring history inside our homes, in our hands, they enliven it without self toil, for the reason why it was written in such a direct and everyday language where it loses nothing of its glamour, splendor, even its romanticism.
It is so sweet and beautiful to feel that someone out there is sharing the same feeling with you, even if you do not know him/her, or ever will. I will give you an example:
Page 20:
Referring to the influences of Ray Bradbury, Kostas Arkoudeas states: “At some point he discovered Edgar Allan Poe and he sank purring in pleasure into his mourning ambiance”.
I correlated myself with this sentence; I correlated even for a moment, with this historical moment in Bradbury’s life. As I associated myself with Kostas Arkoudeas who feels for Poe as I do, as I did when I was a little one, discovering Poe’s work, hooded on my bed, having excluded the whole world out of my room to absorb every one of his words. I was “purring in pleasure” too.
Certainly our author does not fail to place us into the most important facts in the life of the “dangerous ones”, such as, for example, in a moment so defining for Bradbury’s life and his authoring pathway. The fact that is referring as “the core and beginning of his work” in biographies as well as in his autobiography. The visit to the circus and the phrase “live forever”! I won’t try to mess up with the magic you’ll receive by reading it, I will only mention something that my dear late friend and painter Yannis Zaharopoulos used to say: “Once you finish your work, it does not belong to you anymore but… you’re immortal now… your words will never be erased!” So I must thank the author for the wonderful gift that he gave us, the “Dangerous authors” and I personally believe that he is one of them.
There are many important moments in our life, but the definitive ones are not that frequent and most of the times it might be only just one. We, as historians, call it “decisive point”. It is the moment where a simple decision can change the course of history. But this decision is always unique. Only one version can lead to destiny, in this significant change. For me, giving an example, a definitive moment in my life was when I had just graduated from Lyceum and took a tour in Thessaloniki with my dad for shopping. Necessary stop was Papasotiriou bookstore among others. My dad went straight to the photography section, being an art photographer himself, and I went straight to the philosophers’ corner. As I was browsing many different volumes and flipping through the pages or reading the summary at the back, I picked up a book which I frankly don’t remember its title and behind it, I noticed something lying down on the back of the shelf. I pulled some more books out in order to reach that which was behind them. To my great surprise it was a book. Thick enough like the ones I love the most, in burgundy red and tattered. Like it was been read too many times, discolored in some places. Its title: “Friedrich Nietzsche” by Stefan Tsveig. I instinctively held it in my hand while I was walking around browsing other shelves and books. But my mind was fixed to it. When the time to leave had come, I met my dad by the counter. So, I place my pile together with my dad’s photography books and waited for the girl to inform us about the sum. She took a funny look at me and says: “Where did you get that?” I explained the whole “adventure” to her, she called her supervisor who therefore told me: “Really??!! Where did you get that book? It’s not in our database. It’s old and doesn’t even have a barcode”. Under a feeling of awe that ran through me like a shockwave, I bid him to follow me and pointed at the shelf. He tooκ a thorough look at the spot and ran his finger on the surface to see if it was clean at the back and yes it was been cleaned very often. We looked at each other and went back to the counter. He said: “This one was meant for you alone, so it is a gift from us”. That was a definitive moment in my life. While I was reading it, I fell in love with the philosopher more and more. When the time came for me to choose a course of option at the University that was philosophy. I had already read and indulged into most of the works of this great philhellene. And when time came for me to choose a topic for my dissertation, not just the title, but the whole text was already in my mind. I decided then, that I will write a book on it, the day I return to Greece. Indeed, Nietzsche’s life and philosophy always accompanies me. These definitive moments, so rare in our lives, change our history by influencing others later.
As I note, Arkoudeas had lived such a definitive moment. This specific book is now in my hands and I dare to say, prominently displayed in my library. Since the case is about an already great writer, being delighted to be his contemporaries, I must admit that I will take advantage of our acquaintance and I will try to convince him about a biography.
As I said, the reading of a book can change the world. The historical evidences given by the author are of high importance. They point exactly how it affected Bradbury’s work and other arts, such as the cinema. I know that those of you who read it or will do so, you will look after all of Bradbury’s works you can possibly find, even the adaptation of “Fahrenheit 451” to the big screen.
At page 29, Bradbury exclaims: “I am all the heroes”! So are we. You are with, you are bond with, you become one with them. Moreover you experience the lives of other writers before you, in an incredible way, immerse yourself in their life and work. Especially since these writers are now legends.
-Bogatyr’s mischief - Tolstoy
Once again we come across the vast and detailed descriptions in the expressions of the faces, gestures, even the smallest everyday smirk of the creator, who this time would be Tolstoy. This photographic description brings Tolstoy so close to us, so we can almost touch him, because he is now our uncle, our grandfather or even, the very familiar neighbor.
Beyond his most significant moments, his life and work, we follow consecutively, other peoples’ opinions about his person, such as Maxim Gorky, but also, the general current of that era, in political and religious beliefs. Each and every writer of our history was politically and religiously positioned. Every single one of them had an opinion. Most of them lived through terrible situations affecting their character and their work, with the most famous of Tostoys’ to be “War and Peace”- 1865-69 and “Anna Karenina”-1875-77. His way of writing resembles an attack at the Romantics. Realism in his work is a point of historical study. And here lies the great historical value of the “Authors”. As so distinctively referring in his article in the New York Times in 2010, author Victor Erofeyev: “Tolstoy’s name has become a synonymous of the grandeur of the Russian literature” and “his words produce scents, sounds, vibes of feelings and mood”. It is as if we learn history first hand, but through literature. In their turn though, these writers played an important role on a global level. When Lenin admired Tolstoy so much, he was affected by his work in advance. Such as, for instance, Friedrich Nietzsche influenced Adolf Hitler. Of course, in his particular case, Nietzsche’s every single word and paragraph was twisted in a terrible degree by madness. Some people base their visions on a writer and they either thrive or create monstrosities. But we, the innocent readers, must filter and distill very well the given data and savior their work, unaffected. Literature, as well as history, can become either a shield or a weapon.
Let us see now, what else Kostas Arkoudeas reserves for us. While in Soviet Union Tolstoy was worshipped, in the Russian State he was ignored and instead Chekhof was praised. So again, we see the ultimate value of a literature book in transmitting historical information. The author quotes the words of Vladimir Tolstoy, great great grandson of Leon, who stated in the New York Times that: “Every political authority tried to adapt the great thinkers for his needs. Today’s political authority (he means Putin), does not attempt to do so, either because it’s not clever enough or because it’s highly self-esteemed and feels that they don’t need it”.
A trip into history, every paragraph, either of the past or of the present, but with a lot of messages for the future it is. All of the great ruling powers over men are being affected by the truth and its’ declaration. Although the Tsar leadership took measures in order to abstract specific parts from Tolstoy’s work, the truthful and the artisans found ways to save their beloved work. Through Leon’s and his wife Sofia’s diaries we learn almost everything about their life, their love, their everyday routine, their family, all those that bid them forward to their marital life.
Through these pages we can find many elements that will make us see the works of the “Dangerous ones” differently. We will adore them and perhaps some of you might reconsider towards their stature. Others will debunk them, by learning about their life and their course in general. But still, one more step towards them. Therefore, those of you who avoided reading these classic works, in believing that they are not referring to the modern man, you were being fooled and I would be very pleased if you would amend. I’m confident that after the reading of the “Dangerous ones” you will do so.
Bulgakov’s story and his novel “Master and Margarita”, teaches us the changes of society with the passage of time. Something that in many years were believed to be heretic and suffered censorship became one of the greatest works of international literature. This happens to all sectors, in science for instance. Once, not so far from our time, the official thesis was that Earth was flat. If you expressed something different, you were in the best of cases a heretic and were excommunicated, while in the worse scenario you faced the flames. Today, so many different opinions are circulated, beliefs and ideologies, that anyone can chose what matches their own “filter”. The bolder and more adventurous, create new personal ideas. History records them all. An important register for book-lovers, music-lovers as well as historians and biographers, if given by the author at page 65-66:
“Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long years
Stole million man’s soul and faith
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name”
When Jagger of the Rolling Stones, took “Master and Margarita” from Marianne Faithful, the result as we learn from her autobiography, was the famous song “Sympathy for the Devil”.
Good books take us far. Very good and exceptional ones give us something more: the chance to philosophize. “Dangerous authors” is that kind of book. Except my journey into all the referred eras, I was philosophizing on every page in many different levels.
To understand the size of the work done on the “Dangerous authors”, we have but to see all the historical references on the surrounding area of each case- political, economical facts etc. The author blends so many different historical information that frankly I wonder how many hours of reading and research he has spent in order to help us understand so generously, and also in such a legible way, what and how it affected the work of each of the “Dangerous ones”.
The author’s role differentiates to the contemporary minds of the rulers and not only. Everyone, depending on the position they hold and the ideology that each one serves, comprehends and translates differently the phrases of each scholar. Therefore, for instance, Aristophanes in the medieval ages was forbidden, while today is considered an example to follow and light-giver and again not in every circle. Authors bloom or wither depending on the consensus of ideology whether political or religious.
Writers who had been beyond the prevailing view of conception and ideology, had to hide, not today of course… despite the fact that we see that changing again today. I see friends, not just writers, being persecuted and gagged because they dare to write about things that are not in the liking of the dominant system. History repeats itself. In the case of writers, I wish that humanity won’t have to live through scenes of book mass burning. Although, let’s not head that far, I’ll remind you of what happened with the famous book of Mimis Androulakis, “M to the N”. But let us not paint everything in black… Authors of all genre and their ideologies are the freedom of our mind, regardless of whether we embrace their views. Each of us has his/her own personal filter and keeps what coincides with their psychosynthesis.
The chase of the bold writers leads us to the lodges of artisans and “dangerous” artists. In Paris, London, Saint Petersburg… In all great cities and capitals of the world, artistic circles gathered up in specific hangout points, to exchange views, critiques and of course to feel that they belong somewhere. This warmth, that they were not alone and hunted, was always an important element in the life of risk-taking scholars and artists.
There are several moments in history, where there was something worse than the words of a “dangerous” author. This was a woman writer. There were a few bold heroines, novelists and poets that stood up to share with the world, the agonies that overflowed their heart and minds. Talking about Anna Akhmatova, for whom you’ll read in the next chapter.
The fact is that all the greater writers lived in periods especially frantic, mainly politically but also religiously. Besides, those two usually coexist. They lived through horror, terror, they looked at death’s eyes, and they were starved, humiliated, slandered… I guess that’s why their language was imbued with flame and passion. The experiences of each person shape his/her personality. Especially when this someone is a novelist or a poet, the only escape and salvation is through the written language, where he/she can unfold his/her inner soul as we say and partly get rid of the burden they carry. The freakier the facts and the periods they lived, the more powerful their words became.
Through all this ‘blitz’ of historical reports, details and significant facts that marked art, its heroes and the influence on their work, could not be missing. Just as for instance, the greatest moments in the history of European art- the post-war art explosion.
-----It was a huge world, though the artists and the scholars, managed to find out ways to co-sail with each other, influencing a little bit up to extreme level their work and the course of life. The incident of Casagemas’ suicide, Picasso’s friend, which took place in front of him, marked the painter and as the writer says… “He started painting works that emitted sadness and sorrow, expressing his psychological pain but also the awfulness in which he lived. It was, the blue period, the first of his art periods that led him to the top”. So we see that some facts changed the artistic history on a global level.
As for Neruda, one phrase enchanted me, for I too am a child of rain. “Honoring his brave stance, the international community voted for him to be a member of the International Peace Council. Not bad for a village boy, who had the rain as a companion during his childhood. He could have forgotten it all, but the cold rain of the south was engraved inside him. He never met a mother. When he was six, his father- a railroader in profession- took him from Paral, in the centre of Chile to the borders, in Temuko, with its’ grey sky and the waterfalls of rain” (page 117). I’m certain that even if someone of you is not familiar with the life and works of these people whom Arkoudeas’ is recounting for us, he/she will correlate with some of them.
Just like Picasso, in Neruda’s work, the death of his best friend Lorca from “Franco’s hungry phalanxes” was catalytic. It is astonishing how easy and sometimes even in a few pages only, Arkoudeas takes us on a journey to the entire life of an author or an artist. In a very few pages we learned about all the important points and of course the significant meaning of Neruda’s or Lorca’s work.
The author does not stand to the simple entry of incidents from the life of his heroes. He has an opinion, his own ideology and, naturally, his way of writing. He may, in the most simple and pleasant way, describe and summarize philosophies, ways of life and ideologies that would need lots of volumes for a reader to comprehend. And there it lies in my opinion, Kostas Arkoudeas’ genius. It is not enough just to like a language artist. His power lies in every one of his words, that even today, sometimes, it’s deadly dangerous.
Sometimes, summarizing the facts it’s like showing pictures to the world. Words are certainly more powerful. And turning them into a picture requires a level of mastery. As you will read on your own and see easily, within two-three paragraphs we learn a lot about important composers who, through their music changed the world, about global political games, about famous assassinations, about the biggest rivals and revolutions, about dominant ideologies that shaped and continue to transform generations, about characters and various personalities, about the “how’s” and the “why’s” of this world. All that, can fit into two-three paragraphs, as if the whole world is a novel.
From the torrent of historical events and the significant information, the reference to “1984” by Orwell, could not be missing. Not only it was epoch-making, but continues to be relevant in the times we live in. Perhaps that is how others are thinking too, in previous periods and our suffering is timeless- it just changes names. So, there you go- this book turns you besides an historical researcher to a passionate reader and philosopher.
Through the narration of political changes and events that influenced the utmost our planet, such as the regimes and revolts in Latin America and the Apartheid in Africa, we meet our heroes, their life, the role they played in international politics and social history. Not just their works, but what led them to write those, what influenced them and what pushed them to become “dangerous writers”. All these and much more egregious situations we live through today. Therefore, as an historian I ought to have my eyes open, because in times like that, these writers come into existence. And one of them signs this very book. You are “dangerous”, my dear Arkoudeas. Because, you’re not afraid to speak your mind and criticize the things to pass and the contemporary incidents as well. Especially in a dark and deeply censored time like the one we live in today, not just in Greece but on a global level. Just like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, we need to keep on dreaming, make plans and work on for a better world. A brave new world. Many were all those who dared and several those who made it. Let us become even more.
Kostas Arkoudeas familiarizes us with works from the five continents of the planet. Thus we learn about literature diamonds that are hardly known, or unknown to the Greek market, such as those written by the south-African novelist Nadine Gordimer or the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, with his famous debut novel “Things fall apart” in 1958.
Alas! Our ancient Classics could not be missing from this book, those who gave the ‘Light’ of Nous to humanity. Speaking of “Antigone” of Sophocles, the analysis and the commendations alone would require several volumes. But our writer manages to transfer, in a few pages, the grandeur of tragedy, plus the views of the most significant scholars, as well as its theatrical adaptations. Not even “1984” by Orwell. The monstrosities we read once in this book, we once watched in our televisions, they now happen all around us. Hence, our “dangerous” writer has a talent. Besides the superb control of language and his spherical view, he possesses critical thinking and comparison.
Through many different eras and sociopolitical historic behemoths, we can see that every fanatical personality that tried to change or did change the world was wroth abolitionist to every form of free expression and dissimilarity. While the trends of every period and the ideologies were been trafficked mainly by the pen, those who were mostly hunted down were the writers, the song-makers and all kinds of dreamers.
One of the most interesting elements of this book is according to my opinion, the magic that weaves inside the reader’s mind, while the writer mixes the eras, the historical events and the great personalities of world history. It is not a monotonous book with a beginning, center and an ending and for that precise reason this analysis is not being made in a linear fashion. It is one of the most beautiful journeys I’ve ever made! A journey to the most colorful pages of human history!
Consequential events and movements that declare the needs of society, are been described in a bold fashion, leading us always to those who dared to make a stand, to write, to denounce in every way, all those who gag a group of people. Kostas Arkoudeas’ language is direct, that we call “hitting to the bone”. He takes our breath away, restoring combustive issues of injustice and inequality to our memory and why not, at the vanguard. Like in the story of Margie in “Persepolis” by Marianne Satrapi in which she denounces racism in theocratic regimes, such as the one in Iran.
Also, a great chapter in forbidden literature is the strictly inappropriate, the so-called X-rated. Works that supposedly offended the public decency and served the fall of morals scandalizing the proper societies. Such books may sometimes outbalance in fame, the most important works of their creators, but their banning got them high on the golden dais of publicity. Many great writers were stigmatized as pornographers, because they wanted to bring love and sensuality to exaltation, to the degree it befit it, every one of them with the most precious words. A characteristic example is D. H. Lawrence, from whom the author quotes the following: “Love is a very powerful, beneficial and necessary stimulus in human life and we are all grateful when we feel it’s’ warm, natural flow that penetrates us like the light of the sun” and “There is not evil in sexual feelings per se, as long as they are honest and not secret or insidious. The right aphrodisiac stimulus is precious in the everyday life of man, without it the world darkens” (page 393).
Works that have been prosecuted for immorality, many times after their era, just like “Lady Chatterley”, many years after Lawrence’s death, will always carry the sparkly essence of their creators. I’m definitely sure, after many hours of reading, that “Dangerous authors” will be one of them. Indeed, hiding in its’ pages, the weight of all the referent books and creators, make the book overweight, as I usually say. Kostas Arkoudeas has been written in history for good.
The critique he censures at the social ills, and more specific to the authoritarian regimes such as the one we live in today, was necessary for this book. Despite how you will look at it, you cannot show all the black pages of history, to compliment and defend the freedom of speech and not been enraged with all the totalitarianism. Therefore, very aptly, the author will talk about the “smiling fascism” that we’re going through today. As many of you have already started to comprehend, this situation not only continues but it derails more and more. All this delirium created new literature Titans. Arkoudeas initiates us to contemporary “dangerous authors”, to those who, through their pen or their keyboard are not afraid to demonstrate the ill-happenings.
Of course, speaking of political correctness today, he becomes one of them, thus giving courage to the creators, either artisan or generally speaking, expressionists of every form of art, to not be silenced, to not stop searing. Because then, how will our world be? Every free voice would have been silenced and it will walk around gagged. I will share with you something that hit me really hard. Page 479: “What matters then, if censorship of books to a generation that does not read?” This is even more frightening than we think. All of the previous generations, used to read. They had the knowledge and the experience of their predecessors to avoid misfortunes. Even so, some unpleasant events could not be avoided. Think now, without reading, without knowledge, without critical thinking, what might follow.
In the most demonstrative way, Arkoudeas shows the importance and the necessity of reading. Books, knowledge, experiences, views and ideas must not wither away. It is our duty to show how critical is to defend freedom of speech (and not just that) but also to resist to the totalitarianism.
In a very gentle way, Bukowski says that, censorship derives from ignorance and social illiteracy of every historical period. Things that used to cause shock and awe, you find them everywhere today and are politically correct and accepted by all. The same happens in every era, as well as today in 2021. As history teaches, when the instances of censorship increase and the censored accusations multiply, the only way is that of a dictatorship (whatever it would have been called), despotism and the loss of freedom.
Brave New World – Aldus Huxley – “In nursery, through a series of harsh and cruel methods, babies are been trained to hate flowers and books. Flowers because they are counterproductive and lead to nature loving, books because they are unpredictable and cause unwanted reactions” (pages: 494-495).
I’ll conclude with a thought and a comment on that. Do not ever stop admiring the flowers- nature is the face of the Gods on Earth. Do not ever stop to read, if you don’t want to stop thinking. But if you indeed, want to head to a “brave new world”, there’s always lobotomy.
And who among us now won’t chase to read all of the works, of each and every one of the “dangerous authors”… I believe we’ll all do so! And those of us who had already read them, those classic behemoths of literature, will read them again, but this time under a different scope and different angle, since now we personally know their creators. As you will now read “Dangerous authors” and make acquaintance with Arkoudeas today, as if he was on our table.
There could not be a better way for Arkoudeas’ to end this “illegal” book than the “Case of Greece” which is included in the appendix. I was shocked I admit it, but not negatively. Rebetiko’s culture, the alleged underworld, the absurd censorship to anything didn’t cope with the authority, whether it was Metaxa’s regime or the other “umbrella”, the Church. Censorship, bans and punishment it was, to all those who dared to be themselves and just express their thoughts. How bad it is after all for someone to express their opinion freely, to cauterize the ill happenings, to spread newly discovered ideas?
As we determine, things have not changed. Labels remain and burden the necks of the bold ones and the free-thinkers. And at the end, what’s left to comprehend is that people become “dangerous” when their opinion won’t suit some others. Our writer’s historical research will forever be up to date. Every time an author or an artist is gagged, his/her name will add to the “Dangerous authors”.
I could not have read a better book, especially in our time. And the truth is that every time that I will be holding the work of one of the “dangerous ones”, Kostas Arkoudeas will appear in my thoughts.
Hara Dafna, Historian
Summer 2021
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