The caique from Lavra - a review

The caique from Lavra, by Michael Nikoletseas - a review

This is the story of Mikail, his journey to Athonite monasticism. If you are looking for a book on sermons, admonition and miracles, look elsewhere. If you have read "The Bear" by William Falkner and found it boring, if you have been wondering why such a big fuss about it, you will feel the same reading The Caique.

Michail visits Athos and for unexplained reasons he feels anxiety or fear overcoming him. This triggers a flight around Athos and a desperate attempt to leave Athos instantly. An experience with the police at the airport of Thessaloniki has such a profound effect on him that he cancels his flight and returns to Athos.

He spends the summer at the monastery of Megisti Lavra. As fall approaches he decides to leave. He goes down the hill to the little port of the monastery to catch the caique. The events that follow are such that the reader becomes aware of the universality of this story. This story is about dark paths man's soul traverses in life and death.

Here I have confined myself to the manifest content of the story. The real story is in the realm of the spiritual. That is for later.
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You can now read the book at Harvard, also in English and Greek here
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Michael_Nikoletseas_THE_CAIQ...

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megisti-lavra

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Average: 4.9 (99 votes)
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Comments

it is like a dream, not clear why things happen, its like a detective story, figure it out yourself, I think the visit to the cave of St Athanasios is the key.

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Average: 5 (12 votes)

yes, like a detective story. I think the cop at the airport is center of the story.

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Average: 5 (9 votes)

Athos, you refer to Faukner's Bear. I suspect you see parallels...

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Average: 5 (27 votes)

I think there is no parallel. In Faulkner's story a young man searches for a bear, here Mikhail searches for God.

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Average: 5 (5 votes)

In Anthropology, totemic concepts, male searches for male totem,

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Average: 5 (1 vote)

Athos, the ending sends chills down my spine. It is packed, boom! I think the story is not about the monk, its about death.

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Average: 5 (48 votes)

Chilling ending. He is dying alone. God nowhere!

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Average: 5 (18 votes)

Indeed! considering he is a monk!

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Average: 5 (13 votes)

God is there but not surely. The gendarme!
God is present in the story, the shepherds, the policeman, the gendarme guarding the port. The boatman at Hilandari. This story appears ridiculously simple and badly written, however it is packed, dynamite!

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Average: 5 (27 votes)

Thank Billy.

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Average: 5 (6 votes)

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