No… yes… saying…

Three words that we say and hear every now and then. ‘Ochinailegontas’—a neologism in our language and a brilliant title for a new book that I don’t quite know what to call: poetry, theatre, thriller, psychoanalytical essay on Love? I wonder: what would Margarita Karapanou say about this work by Alexandros Adamopoulos, she who twenty years ago described his ‘Simigdaleni’ as a ‘unique phenomenon in Greek theatre’. Let me explain: I am no expert. I love literature, poetry and theatre, and I am an honest reader and a well-meaning spectator. And because I believe that Art is not just for experts, I dare to share my thoughts and feelings with you. On the other hand, I know the author well; we have been friends for many years. It would be a great hypocrisy not to say so – I keep myself in check better this way – especially since I had the good fortune, every day, for four months, to see, to experience verse by verse, the work taking shape, to hear it come to life in the voice of its creator and take on a life of its own, right before my eyes.So what is Alexandros Adamopoulos’s ‘Ochinailegontas’, recently published by Ikaros Publications? It aims to be, above all, a timeless and universal work, which, far from cheap sensationalism, fads and cheap, off-the-cuff remarks, is not here to sell, to flatter, or to garner praise, but to take its place in the long line of Great Greek literature. Through its language. Through its plot. Through its music. With its messages. With its depth. With its striking topicality, which the author, however, does not hesitate to set within medieval palaces, where arrows bearing love notes whistle around us and the Guardians of Love eavesdrop, standing half-naked, in the shadows! Now, yesterday, always; you, me, everyone…And all this through solitary, personal paths, which you might say he chose on purpose to make things difficult for us – or perhaps to make it easier for us to dream? – since everything perhaps vaguely reminds us of something, but ultimately does not let us grasp hold of anything familiar.Because, these days, we aren’t in the habit of reading much poetry. And yet ‘Ochinelegontas’ is entirely poetic! One hundred and twenty pages with every rhythm and metre your mind can conceive. With rhyme, with all the music you can hear within the words and let wash over you. Measured down to the tiniest detail; not even half a syllable is out of place. Yet in a language that is simple, precise, concrete, apt, without pretence or approximation. A language that flows right to the core; if you open the door for it to come in and tell you whatever it has to say. Moreover—and even more so—we are not at all in the habit of reading plays. The very idea is alien to us; we see them on stage once in a while, and that is all. And yet the play is theatrical! With heroes of today, full of life; even if they bear old-fashioned names. For however much they may be lost in the mists of time, amidst castles and the initially naive fantasies of bygone eras, we can easily see them beside us, within us; even on the psychoanalyst’s couch, desperately seeking their tranquilliser. With a plot that is very solid and deeply thought-out, razor-sharp at every moment, with nothing superfluous to fill gaps, it traps us from the very first page in its well-crafted mechanism and does not let us go for a single moment, right until the end. It is astonishing that the play, had it been a simple ‘fairy-tale drama’, as the author jokingly puts it, we would have thought it ended where Act 2 ends; whereas in fact the play is only just beginning and we still know nothing! Even that light-hearted, humorous touch—the parrot, Psouthos, who keeps saying—what else?— ‘sagapomorou’—is wisely placed there to play a part and remind us of something. Even an empty cot can captivate our full attention with its silence, because it is exactly where it should be; at precisely the right moment. Theatre in all its glory, then. But also a book, whether you like it or not; as you read it, you enjoy its action and become a unique, privileged spectator-reader. The setting? In other times, ancient, fairy-tale, medieval; Byzantine, let’s say. It is from there that Adamopoulos has borrowed his material – names, buildings, objects, customs, situations – which he has transformed in his own way, so that everything seems familiar and does not feel alien to us at all. That is where his connection to the past begins, and yet, at the same time, that is where it ends. Even with ‘Livistros and Rodamni’, from which he took the general canvas, to embroider upon it and express his entirely own thoughts. For as the heroes’ drama unfolds, the situations bear absolutely no relation to that 14th-century medieval novel, but become entirely contemporary, become our own, familiar. They draw near and touch us; dangerously… And the theme? Love… Well, that’s fine! But here too, things are different… Love here is not what we imagine it to be nowadays: tender, good-natured, sweet, with rosy-cheeked, half-naked, silly little angels flitting here and there, handing out Valentine’s Day flowers! It is Hesiod’s Eros: terrifying, scheming, insatiable. He doesn’t play around; he demands far more than we are willing to give. And if not, he tears us apart, as long as we keep seeking him. He takes us to the very depths of our being. To a place where there is nothing left but a mirror, showing us exactly as we are; without any embellishment, no alibi and absolutely no excuse: ‘Do you think the ways of nature are easy? / Just a gurgle of water in the mouth of a cold tap? / Perhaps dewdrops on the lips of a spring? / And do you avoid the pain of my own wound? / Do you want to drown, alone, in your own being so much? / Come on! Bend your ear and listen to your heart;/ you, who want everyone to slaughter themselves at the hem of your skirt!’…The terrible Eros, then, who· ‘speaking horribly, with boundless ease/ has made us all his slaves in doubt’… Eros; who, at every moment throughout the play, whether he is present himself or is reminded to us by the Chorus of his Guards: ‘Neither mountaineer, nor warrior, nor brave diver/ who plunged wholeheartedly into the mountain of Aphrodite/ you are the eternally living one; the sole catalyst’… Another paradox: dance and choruses in our time? And yet; how naturally everything works, without imitating anything at all; things that, in any case, cannot be imitated without becoming ridiculous. And something else, entirely original: Amidst the constant upheavals of everything, in the unfolding of the myth and the behaviour of the heroes – save for Klitos – even the Chorus transforms and passes from dream to dream and from there, imperceptibly; without our realising it, into reality itself; helping, participating in, and perhaps even provoking the unique, masterful, spine-tingling finale of the work, which, as far as I know, has no equal anywhere else, as within the sound of the drums – which trap us too and dictate even our own breath – Rodi’s monologue merges with Livius’s silent weeping and Klitos’s helpless silence. And our breath and the beating of our hearts resonate with the drums that drive everyone, in Dionysian frenzy, towards their uncertain transcendence, and everything, in a bottomless depth, swirls with boundless intensity, in an endless vortex…And everything ends without anything ending. And everything is said, without anything having been said. Only Eros takes his share. And we, of course. We take that boundless bittersweet pleasure; those rare moments when, with a heavy heart, we close the final page of a book we do not yet want to end; yet we know it will remain deep within our souls forever…  Dinos Pilos, AtticaBank, Head of Investment Programmes (published on 1 November 2012 in AtticaBank’s quarterly publication)