The Ruin of Kasch (Paper) (Ouke) by Roberto Calasso
A brilliant new translation of a classic work on violence and revolution as seen through mythology and art
The Ruin of Kasch takes up two subjects--the first is Talleyrand, and the second is everything else, wrote Italo Calvino when the book first appeared in 1983. Hailed as one of those rare books that persuade us to see our entire civilization in a new light, its guide is the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who knew the secrets of the ancien r gime and all that came after, and was able to adapt the notion of legitimacy to the modern age. Roberto Calasso follows him through a vast gallery of scenes set immediately before and after the French Revolution, making occasional forays backward and forward in time, from Vedic India to the porticoes of the Palais-Royal and to the killing fields of Pol Pot, with appearances by Goethe and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Marx, Walter Benjamin and Chateaubriand. At the center stands the story of the ruin of Kasch, a legendary kingdom based on the ritual killing of the king and emblematic of the ruin of ancient and modern regimes.
Roberto Calasso, publisher of Adelphi in Milan, is the author of many books, among them The Ruin of Kasch, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Ka, K., and Tiepolo Pink, all parts of a work in progress of which La Folie Baudelaire is the sixth panel.
Alastair McEwen has translated almost ninety books of fiction and nonfiction and seven feature film scripts, as well as radio play adaptations, operative librettos, and many hundreds of articles for various magazines and newspapers. He has also translated some of Italy's finest writers (Calasso, Eco, Tabucchi, and many others). He lives and works in Milan.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674780293 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674780299 |
| Title | The Ruin of Kasch (Paper) (Ouke) |
| Author | Roberto Calasso |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press |
| Year published | 1996-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |