{"product_id":"9781250251213","title":"The Unnamable Present","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Unnamable Present\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Roberto Calasso\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA decisive key to help grasp some of the essential points of what is happening around us. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ninth part of Roberto Calasso’s work in progress, \u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable Present\u003c\/i\u003e, is closely connected with themes of the first book, \u003ci\u003eThe Ruin of Kasch\u003c\/i\u003e (originally published in 1983, and recently reissued by FSG in a new translation). But while \u003ci\u003eKasch\u003c\/i\u003e is an enlightened exploration of modernity, \u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable Present\u003c\/i\u003e propels us into the twenty-first century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTourists, terrorists, secularists, fundamentalists, hackers, transhumanists, algorithmicians: these are all tribes that inhabit the unnamable present and act on its nervous system. This is a world that seems to have no living past, but was foreshadowed in the period between 1933 and 1945, when everything appeared bent on self-annihilation. \u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable Present\u003c\/i\u003e is a meditation on the obscure and ubiquitous process of transformation happening today in all societies, which makes so many previous names either inadequate or misleading or a parody of what they used to mean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTranslated with sensitivity by Calasso’s longtime translator, Richard Dixon, \u003ci\u003eThe Unnamable Present\u003c\/i\u003e is a strikingly original and provocative vision of our times, from the writer \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e called “a literary institution of one.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"[A] tremendous achievement . . . in Mr. Calasso’s kaleidoscopic series of investigations into the spiritual biography of the secular West. . . . Mr. Calasso is not a lecturer or a literalist. He does not write straightforwardly, but shuffles between ideas and episodes, treating all thought as contemporaneous. He handles the events of the past with the reverence of a priest, rather than the dispassion of a historian.\" --\u003cb\u003eDominic Green, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Deeply learned . . . a tour de force and among the most memorable things Calasso has written over the course of his series . . . Admirers of contemporary European literature and continental philosophy will find this engaging and provocative.\"  —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirkus\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781250251213\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Picador","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40739421225166,"sku":"9781250251213","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_63e2d4be-1f5f-451a-b55c-770fe7ed0119.jpg?v=1641363630","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781250251213","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}