Books: The Poet Armed

THE ROCK GARDEN (251 pp.)—Nikos Kazantzakis—Simon & Schuster ($4.50).

In 1936, Japan and China were on the verge of war and hardly in the mood for poetry. But the great Greek Poet-Novelist Nikos Kazantzakis chose that year to make a trip to the Orient. There his poetic values came under heavy bombardment. In this transparently autobiographical novel, as slender in plot as it is rich in philosophy, Kazantzakis records the intellectual combat.

On the surface, Japanese life seemed to have the "feathery Buddhist consistency of dreams." In reality, the Japanese were feverishly girding for war, as if for a sacred mission. "These little...