“… The story reaches a climax in chapters 6 and 7 with a film that someone, now dead, created and gifted to Ari. The four friends watch it now… Disasters and exaltation of civilizations, culminations and ruins, important personalities of history and faceless crowds, countries and people, population displacements, intervention. A magnificent, tragic, and vain epic unfolds in front of our eyes. It is an important story of rare quality and originality, written in a magically melancholic as well as calm language, where ‘only the machines are the new face of the coming era’…”

–M. G. Meraklis, Professor

 

“… The Agony of Survival explores the conceptual variety, and the anthropological context of cohabitated civilizations and their collective functions, under the spectacularly dramatic shield of the universe. As far as I know, it constitutes the general fable of modern life as universal entity with its distinct markings which joins fragmented scenes of human venture with the magnificent composition of the present. In essence, The Agony of Survival is a philosophical dissertation-analysis of the theatrical deaths of a technological culture…”

–Paraskevi-Kopsida Vrettou, Doctor of Philology

 

“…It is the right foundation to further reinforce the research on the defensive powers of the human race, against numerous and chaotic powers of the surrounding destruction.

…Spyros Vrettos’s book raises critical questions that set the basis for exploration in several directions. Above all, it shows the interconnections of visible or invisible powers which suffocate the functions of human life like a giant polyp.”

–Apostolos Lazaris, Professor, Economist

 

“…On the other hand, the narrative flow is truly sensational, when the fate and torture of humans, since time immemorial, flashes in front of the couples’ eyes, in panoramic screens at the library-workshop of the building. The narrative stuff of Spyros Vrettos is noteworthy as well as the fabrication of Virgil and Dante’s tour, where Dante is the tour guide to the rise and fall of civilizations, the brutality of power, the daily nightmarish microcosm of the centuries…”

–Dimitris Konidaris, Poet, Literary Critic

 

“…In all respects, it is the assigned mass death to humans as described in the nightmarish reconstruction of disaster through art.

        The inset film, furnishes the inconceivable rhythms of the universal deconstruction. From an unwavering aspect, the author reprimands us and invites us to a conduct of life through the reassessment of death and corruption.”

–Theotokis Zervos, Poet, Doctor

 

“…Planet Earth lives the tragedy without catharsis. The Agony of Survival demonstrates the prospects of the present and the future of humanity.”

–Argiro Verikiou-Balda, Career Advisor

 

“…It brims over the agony of the modern soul in front of the grim future that lies ahead in the system of today’s ‘civilization’.”

–Dimitris Raios, Professor

 

“…an original work. It raises questions beyond its amazing artistic scene…”

–John P. Anton, Philhellene, Professor

 

“…it’s a masterpiece, an artistic success. The ecological problem, in the final analysis, prevails bluntly.”

–Michael G. Meraklis, Professor, Literary Critic

 

“…Original work, well-written, full of contemplation, fantasy, and visualization. It is powerful writing with the kind of demands which enthrall the reader…”

–George K. Daikos, Professor