THE RUIN OF KASCH (SIGNED)

ROBERTO CALASSO (TRANSLATORS - WILLIAM WEAVER AND STEPHEN SARTARELLI)

ISBN 10: 0856357138 / ISBN 13: 9780856357138

Edité par CARCANET, MANCHESTER, 1994

A propos de cet article

Blue cloth quarter binding with Navy blue blocked title slip, gilt titles and grey cloth boards, 240 x 160 mm approx. [vi] + 386 pp. Portrait frontis. First UK Edition 1994 inscribed and signed by the author in ink to the front free end paper and dated 2nd Dec 1994 with invitation card from the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute London for the presentation of the book that evening. Also laid in are extensive longhand notes and a press review of the book from the Independent on Sunday 27th Nov.1994. Please see our images of the actual book offered for sale for further details and condition. Near Fine/ Near Fine (Book Author insc. as above else fine. Dust Jacket - negligible shelf rubbing/ soiling, non price clipped - cover £19.95. Please request via ?ask bookseller a question/contact bookseller? when placing order if you would like a removable proprietary protective sleeve be fitted prior to posting at no extra cost.

N° de réf. du vendeur 135002

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: THE RUIN OF KASCH (SIGNED)
• Éditeur: CARCANET, MANCHESTER
• Date de parution: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0856357138
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780856357138
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• Impression: 1st Printing
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: Near Fine
• Signé: Signed by Author(s)
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Signed Books
  • Modern First Editions

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

In the African kingdom of Kasch the king should be sacrificed when the stars come into a particular alignment. One day a stranger arrives who tells such good yarns the priests forget to watch the skies. The king survives. Sacrifice is abolished, but the kingdom begins to decline. Using this Bedouin legend Roberto Calasso questions the legitimacy of power, tyranny and sacrifice. Talleyrand is the master of ceremonies and guides the reader into real and symbolic places. We are accompanied by Marie-Antoinette, Bentham, Goethe, Baudelaire, Marx, Chateaubriand, three gruesome assassins and assorted other folk. They all contribute to Calasso's vision of history which encompasses both narrative and reflection and reveals how ideas and actual events impinge upon one another.

Revue de presse

"The Ruin of Kasch takes up two subjects: the first is Talleyrand, and the second is everything else. And everything else includes all the things that have hapened in human history, from the beginning of civilisation until today... It is a book that loves to reveal itself as wandering and vagrant, guided only by fancy and by an insatiable curiosity, constructed of fragments, citations, digressions, anecdotes, and aphorisms - all so that it can be read with nearly continuous pleasure" (Italo Calvino)

"A work charged with intelligence and literary seduction... Profligate in its voices and conversations, this startling, puzzling, profound book yields no take-away thesis; but it lingers in the memory like the aroma of an ancient library" (New York Times Book Review)

"This is a great, fat, jewel-box of a book, gleaming with obscure treasures" (John Banville)

"Unique, idiosyncratic and vaultingly ambitious... essentail reading" (Michael Dibdin Independent on Sunday)

"Scarcely have readers opened the book when they are not merely interested but fascinated - dazzled in the richest sense of the word...Here is a work that combines erudition, brilliance of style, and intellectual virtuosity to portray the modern era" (Francois Bott Le Monde)