{"product_id":"9780374120061","title":"The Celestial Hunter","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Celestial Hunter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Roberto Calasso\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Choice\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Calasso's] flow of associations leaves you feeling not out of your depth, but smarter and better read.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s monumental series on the primal forces of civilization\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eThe eighth part of Roberto Calasso’s singular work in progress that began in 1983 with \u003ci\u003eThe Ruin of Kasch\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Celestial Hunter \u003c\/i\u003eis an inspired and provocative exploration of mankind’s relationship with myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVivid and strikingly original, and expertly translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon, \u003ci\u003eThe Celestial Hunter \u003c\/i\u003etraces 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"You can dip in at any point, and be carried along as in a lively cafe conversation — that is, if your friend happens to be a polymath with seemingly all of European literature (in the original languages), as well as Vedic writings, in his head, but whose flow of associations leaves you feeling not out of your depth, but smarter and better read . . . Calasso is especially good at describing the characters of myth and legend with a novelist’s omniscient authority.\" --\u003cb\u003eA.E. Stallings, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are two kinds of knowledge, he insists, scientific and mythological – and while he doffs the fedora occasionally to the former, it’s the latter that has made his life worth living and his books worth reading, especially when, as in this latest book, he narrates some captivating passages about divine slap and tickle . . . all infused with the enviable learning of Calasso, whose favoured mode is incontrovertible assertion, sweetened with some lovely poetic passages . . . Calasso is vital.\" --\u003cb\u003eStuart Jeffries, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Calasso] is a spellbinding modern magus who might almost have been invented by his fellow-Milanese, Umberto Eco . . . At best, he writes like a poet, not a professor, in glinting, enigmatic nuggets of narrative finely voiced by his translator Richard Dixon. At a moment when atavistic kinds of peril, awe and terror seem close at hand, it feels no great stretch to share Calasso’s core belief that 'The gods always return.'\"--\u003cb\u003eBoyd Tonkin, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Calasso is elliptical, allusive and dazzlingly eclectic . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Celestial Hunter \u003c\/i\u003eis ‘an initiation through the book’, speculative but capable of changing how you see things.\" --\u003cb\u003eDominic Green, \u003ci\u003eThe Spectator \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thought-provoking . . . [\u003ci\u003eThe Celestial Hunter\u003c\/i\u003e] is laced with aphorisms and bold declarations, but its real strength lies in Calasso’s great facility with languages . . . [It] will provide historians with much entertaining speculation on the story of humankind.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780374120061\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":40735805538510,"sku":"9780374120061","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_be1a4a6f-1b25-4905-8482-d645a934bfea.jpg?v=1641274281","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780374120061","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}