> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Kazantzakis-Dans-le-palais-de-Minos/634783

> Un très beau roman, peu connu et qui marque. J'ai été touché par une image forte, lorsqu'il évoque avec une saisissante fraîcheur le mystère du Minotaure, la fameuse légende du fil d'Ariane, jeune princesse éperdument amoureuse de Thésée. Il se réjouit que Thésée, ce jeune prince d'Athènes, ayant tué le Minotaure, prenne possession de la Crète à l'empire vieillissant, et l'introduise dans ce monde grec de culture et de beauté. Un beau moment de lecture.
—Danieljean (Babelio) ( )

I enjoyed this very clever retelling of the Theseus/Ariadne/Minotaur myth. Written originally for a Greek youth periodical, this seems like one of Kazantzakis' minor works; I don't feel it reaches the stature of his internationally famous works. The translation doesn't seem especially good; I imagine the Greek original is better, although I know only a few words of Greek. I did get a sense of Kazantzakis' talent and creativity. He also mixed in some of the Daedalus/Icarus and Phaedra myths. How Ariadne hit upon the idea of having Theseus' retracing his steps from the labyrinth was ingenious. I liked the portrayal of the Minotaur; although he was a monster, I felt sorry for him. I understood the main theme of the story to be the old civilization [Minoan Crete] giving way to the new [Golden Age Athens]: the Bronze Age yielding to the Iron Age. One of the translators included a few pages at the end devoted to a short history of Crete from its origin till the 1913 unification with Greece, valuable for this non-Hellene. ( )