The Celestial Hunter
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"[Calasso's] flow of associations leaves you feeling not out of your depth, but smarter and better read." --The New York Times Book Review
The eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s monumental series on the primal forces of civilization
The eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s singular work in progress that began in 1983 with The Ruin of Kasch, The Celestial Hunter is an inspired and provocative exploration of mankind’s relationship with myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation.
There was a time, even before prehistory, when man was simply a defenseless animal. The gods he worshiped took the form of other beasts or were the patterns of the stars he saw above him each night in the sky, which he transformed into figures and around which he created stories. Soon, however, man learned to imitate the animals that attacked him and he became a hunter. This transformation, Calasso posits, from defenseless victim to hunter was a key moment, the first step on man’s ascendance to power. Suddenly the notion of the hunter became fundamental. It would be developed over thousands of years through the figures that became central to Greek mythology, including the constellations. Among them was Orion, the celestial hunter, and his dog, Sirius.
Vivid and strikingly original, and expertly translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon, The Celestial Hunter traces how man created the divine myths that would become the cornerstones of Western civilization. As Calasso demonstrates, the repercussions of these ideas would echo through history, from Paleolithic to modern times. And they would be the product of one thing: the human mind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This thought-provoking eighth entry into an ongoing work on myth and history by publisher Calasso (The Marriage of Cadmon and Harmony) leisurely explores the idea of hunting as the key activity in the emergence of civilization. Moving from prehistory to the classical world, Calasso looks for the roots of modernity in ancient literature and myth and discusses the human relationship with animals and the divine. While some chapters retell memorable stories, such as Zeus's last night on Earth, or analyze works including Plato's Laws, most are loosely organized collections of digressions on themes of metamorphosis, imitation, sacrifice, and divinity. The text is laced with aphorisms and bold declarations, but its real strength lies in Calasso's great facility with languages, especially ancient Greek, which aids his ability to do original research, and his ability to make connections over vast territory, for instance noting that people in Australia, China, Greece, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Surinam all saw "the exploits of a Celestial Hunter" in "the same segment of sky." Though less thematically cohesive than other series entries, this philosophical tome will provide historians with much entertaining speculation on the story of humankind.
