The ruin of Kasch
By: Roberto Calasso ; translated by William Weaver and Stephen Sartarelli.
Contributors: Weaver, William, 1923-; Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954-
Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 385
Subjects: France -- History -- Consulate and First Empire, 1799-1815 -- Fiction.; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction.; Africa -- Kings and rulers -- Fiction.
Description: Taking as his focus the periods immediately before and after the French Revolution but making occasional sallies backward and forward in time - from Vedic India to the porticoes of the Palais-Royal and to the killing fields of Pol Pot - Calasso recounts, elucidates, and interprets the downfall of what Baudelaire was already calling "the Modern." This downfall came as a sequel to an earlier and opposite collapse: that of the archaic societies which were regulated by the movements of the stars and the rituals of sacrifice.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [359]-385).