The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Fülszöveg

Already an iiitcnialional lileiitiy event, and Irtnis-laled iiKo a dozen languages, The Marriugi' of Cadmus and Harmony is a hook witlioiit any modern parallel. Forming an aclive link in a chain that f reaches back ihioiigli Ovid's Metamor/)lioses
f direetiv to Homer, Hol)ert() (Jalasso's reexploration
I of the fantastic lahles we may think we know
; explodes die entire world oi Greek mythology,
pieces it back togetiier as it once must have been, t and |5resents it to ns in a new, astonishing, and
^ utterly contem|jorary way.
"But how did it all begin?" ^ The eternal (|uestion that Man has always asked
If ^ of his universe also forms the opening words of this • book. In answer, and in the voice of the born story-^ teller (all erudition, all interpretation is hidden in ^ the folds of his dazzhng narrative), Calasso leads us IP through the maze, back to the time when the gods f were not yet born from the original coupling of
Uranus and Ge, Mother Earth; then forward again,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Already an iiitcnialional lileiitiy event, and Irtnis-laled iiKo a dozen languages, The Marriugi' of Cadmus and Harmony is a hook witlioiit any modern parallel. Forming an aclive link in a chain that f reaches back ihioiigli Ovid's Metamor/)lioses
f direetiv to Homer, Hol)ert() (Jalasso's reexploration
I of the fantastic lahles we may think we know
; explodes die entire world oi Greek mythology,
pieces it back togetiier as it once must have been, t and |5resents it to ns in a new, astonishing, and
^ utterly contem|jorary way.
"But how did it all begin?" ^ The eternal (|uestion that Man has always asked
If ^ of his universe also forms the opening words of this • book. In answer, and in the voice of the born story-^ teller (all erudition, all interpretation is hidden in ^ the folds of his dazzhng narrative), Calasso leads us IP through the maze, back to the time when the gods f were not yet born from the original coupling of
Uranus and Ge, Mother Earth; then forward again, all the way to the death of Odysseus, which marks the end of the age of heroes; and—most important of all—to the marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, the last occasion when the gods sat down at a feast with mortal men. That day began a chain of calamities, a streak of blood that parted earth from Olympus forever. What was left—Cadmus's parting gift to men—was the alphabet, and from it both history and poetry, and so our world, were born.
Yet the world of myth is not dead—it is present now as it was in the time of Homer. The most dangerous event since the beginning of time has been the gods' discovery of us, their Olympian fascination with these human creatures that led them first to invade oin- world, then to assume human form for their own purposes and tlieir own terrible games. The consequences of that fascination are the exlraorditiary encounters that we know as the myths—the great, hypnotic, erotic, often contradic-
(continucd on back flap)
(niiilimicd from froni (hi/)) lorv slories iluK Calasso walks us hack into as if ilicy iiie sotiH' vast. Iialf-ruiiicd palace we had i'or-goUcii we ow ned. A( the end., ihe gods abandoned die world. Biil ihe niiiltiiaceted psychology of Miodetii man and his alenipotal sense of time have hroughl iiim closer (han ever to the mythic condition. And as the author reminds us, the —now as then—do not ask to be believed; they ask only to be recognized.
"These things never happened, but they are alwavs." Hoberto Calasso's book transforms our relationship to the wellsprings of our culture.
Roberto Calasso was born in 1941 in Florence and pursued his studies in Rome. In 1962 he joined Adelphi Edizioni in Milan, the distinguished Italian publishing house known for its uncompromising literan- excellence. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony the winner of France's prestigious Prix Veillon 1901 and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger 1992.
thanslai ki) from the italian iív tim parks
Jacket puinling: Pandora Desrctiding lo Karlli willi Mercury bwhdii Ahtit.r dit U- Romnin, !jriiHilc collection. Pho/ofrra/jh hyj. Sassier/i-j/ifions Oallimard.
Jackf't design by Barhura de llilde
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IN PRAISE OF The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
"Roberto Calasso's aim in his startling and beautiful book, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, is to make us understand, once more, the necessity of myth, not just as fable and fantasy but as a way of comprehending our own nature.
'A life in which the gods are not invited isn't worth hving,' he writes at the close of his book. And for hundreds of pages, through his phenomenal power of poetic narrative, we have indeed shared their company, through the Homeric epics toward that wedding feast in Thebes from which human history was born.
Calasso has not been content to describe or analyze this rich garment of myth. He has spun and woven it from new yarn, so that we experience its power as we are learning its complexity. His is a book rich in anthropological insight, but it will be read and re-read not as treatise but as story: one of the most extraordinary that has ever been written of the origins of Western self-consciousness." —SIMON SCHAMA
'I have no idea whether or not Roberto Calasso is a 'genius' but I do know that The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony is a perfect work like no other. He has re-created, in a blaze of light, the morning of our world: the gods, heroes, monsters of the Greeks are made mysterious sense of in what is, finally, a numinous text to be placed beside — ahead of.^ — Old and New testaments." —GORE VIDAL Vissza