The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

by Roberto Calasso

Overview

Presenting the stories of Zeus and Europa, Theseus and Ariadne, the birth of Athens and the fall of Troy, in all their variants, Calasso also uncovers the distant origins of secrets and tragedy, virginity, and rape. "A perfect work like no other. (Calasso) has re-created . . . the morning of our world."—Gore Vidal. 15 engravings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679733485
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/08/1994
Series:	Vintage International
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	249,293
Product dimensions:	5.19(w) x 7.97(h) x 1.08(d)

About the Author

Roberto Calasso was born in Florence in 1941. He lives in Milan, where he is publisher of Adelphi Edizioni. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, his third book, has been translated into 12 languages.

What People are Saying About This

Gore Vidal

A perfect work like no other. [Calasso] has recreated, in a blaze of light, the morning of our world.

Editorial Reviews

That Greco-Roman mythology should shape a contemporary novel is hardly unusual, but the way this breath-takingly ambitious work shapes--and reshapes--classical mythology is remarkable indeed. Calasso, publisher of the intellectual Milanese house Adelphi, revisits the theogonies set forth by Hesiod, Homer, Ovid et al. and then recasts them for a postmodern audience. Gods and men enact the cosmic mysteries as the narrator comments aphoristically on the progress of ancient and divine history (``With time, men and gods would develop a common language made up of hierogamy and sacrifice . . . . And, when it became a dead language, people started talking about mythology''). Calasso presents the abduction of Europa by a bull, analyzes the Trojan war, discusses the meaning of the word ``tragedy'' and charts the fall of classical Athens. Into this elegant chronology he also interpolates quotations from and allusions to a pantheon of classical writers, in the same weightless manner in which those writers made use of standard formulaic tropes; he extends his territory by planting modern points of reference (``Jason would have preferred to live a bourgeois life at home, just as Nietzsche would have preferred to be a professor in Basel, rather than God''). Readers who don't know their Theseus from their Thyestes shouldn't be discouraged--Calasso's work bridges the perceived distance from the origins of Western culture. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC alternate. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A reconsideration and recombination of Greek mythology, this scholarly tome--which is being billed as both fiction and mythology by the publisher--reaches back extensively through the works of Plutarch, Ovid, Homer, and Plato, to name only a few of the classical writers referenced here. This interweaving of gods and goddesses and of their actions moves back and forth in time, with many comments from Calasso about both the action and its interpretation by scholars. The storytelling style is interesting, but novices of Greek mythology will soon find themselves awash in names and places and activities that are exceedingly difficult to keep straight. An extensive ``family tree'' of characters, an index, and even chapter titles, none of which are included, would have served as useful guideposts. Students of Greek mythology will be intrigued. Primarily for academic collections.-- Olivia Opello, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.

Library Journal

A stunning journey back to ancient Greece with Italian author Calasso, who, in a first US publication, takes apart the old myths to discover the birth of history and modern thinking amid timeless patterns of behavior. Ranging as widely as one of the peripatetic Olympian gods he describes, Calasso moves effortlessly between the legends and the poets and writers—like Homer, Ovid, and Sophocles—who gave their own spin to the old stories. He begins with the rape of Europa, and ends with the marriage of Cadmus to Harmony. The first story reveals the Olympians under Zeus, already withdrawing from the world, manifesting themselves only in forcible interventions like rape; the last marks the final occasion when the gods and men had "been on familiar terms; after that remote time, to invite the gods to one's house became the most dangerous thing one could do, a sign of the now irretrievable malaise between heaven and earth." As Calasso recounts the classic stories in between these two events, he not only divides the relationship between man and the gods into three stages—the third being the modern one of mutual indifference—but also gives accessible lessons on ancient history, religion, and philosophy. Central to the narrative is the death of Odysseus, which ends the "long chain of stories that predate history. After Odysseus, our life without heroes begins; stories are no longer exemplary but are repeated and recounted. What happens is mere history." Action, the hurly-burly of man encountering gods in extraordinary ways and stranger places, is ended with Cadmus' gift of the alphabet to the Greeks. Henceforth, religion—the gods—"will be experienced in the silenceof the mind, no longer in the full and normal presence." But the meanings of the myths linger on—a myth, Calasso asserts, "is the precedent behind every action, its invisible, ever-present lining." Here, the past not only comes vibrantly alive but connects to the present in a virtuoso display of scholarship and insight. A remarkable feat.

Kirkus Reviews

"The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony—erudite, clear, amusing, beautifully written—is essential reading." —The Globe and Mail

"Extraordinary...learned but also daring...brilliant, dazzling to read, a labyrinth lit by fire." —The New York Times Review of Books

"Beautifully written...Calasso reminds us with eloquence that, in this terrible world, we will come closer to perfection by knowing how to meditate on the calamity of our nature than we will by denying it." —The Toronto Star

—

From the Publisher