Author:Roberto Calasso,Richard Dixon
A sparkling new translation of the classic work on violence and revolution as seen through mythology and art
The Ruin of Kasch takes up two subjects: "the first is Talleyrand, and the second is everything else," wrote Italo Calvino when the book first appeared in 1983. Hailed as one of those rare books that persuade us to see our entire civilization in a new light, its guide is the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who knew the secrets of the ancien régime and all that came after, and was able to adapt the notion of "legitimacy" to the modern age. Roberto Calasso follows him through a vast gallery of scenes set immediately before and after the French Revolution, making occasional forays backward and forward in time, from Vedic India to the porticoes of the Palais-Royal and to the killing fields of Pol Pot, with appearances by Goethe and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Marx, Walter Benjamin and Chateaubriand. At the centre stands the story of the ruin of Kasch, a legendary kingdom based on the ritual killing of the king and emblematic of the ruin of ancient and modern regimes.
'Startling, puzzling, profound . . . a work charged with intelligence and literary seduction' The New York Times
'Unique, idiosyncratic and vaultingly ambitious... essential reading' Independent
'A great fat jewel-box of a book, gleaming with obscure treasures' John Banville
Entirely ingenious. Knausgaard isn’t afraid to be gauche, anxious, vulgar, inconsistent, portentous, sentimental. He makes virtues of what, in literary novels, are often counted faults. And he makes them moving.
—— Daily TelegraphSpring features Knausgaard unbound. . . the book’s blunt, unforced telling brings the larger project’s meaning into sudden, brilliant focus… Knausgaard has assembled this living encyclopedia for his daughter with a wild and desperate sort of love, as a way to forge her attachment to the world, to fasten her to it... Fall in love with the world, he enjoins, stay sensitive to it, stay in it.
—— The New York TimesHeavy but not heavy-handed, this true noir of the North is dark, bleak and moody. This story about life that’s set over the course of single day will move and disturb in equal measure.
—— MonocleAn unexpected treat… A lovely piece of work.
—— Sunday TelegraphOodles of musing on life and art that’s by turns meandering and electrifying.
—— Metro[Karl Ove Knausgaard] observes a subject so closely, mining so far into its essence – its quiddity – that the observations transcend banality and become compelling.
—— Peter Murphy , Irish TimesFor anyone who is curious about this writer... Spring makes for an excellent introduction. It is the shortest book he has ever written, but it is all muscle, a generous slice of a thoughtful, ruminative life.
—— The Washington PostIf you still haven’t tried Knausgaard... try Spring. It’s poignant and beautiful… you’ll get him and get why some of us have gone crazy for him.
—— Los Angeles Review of BooksA radical, thrilling departure from the first two volumes of his Seasons Quartet... this moving novel stylistically resembles his acclaimed My Struggle series... A remarkably honest take on the strange linkages between love, loss, laughter, and self-destruction, a perfect distillation of Knausgaard’s unique gifts.
—— Publishers WeeklyKnausgaard’s assets are on full display, including his precise writing style and his unerring sense of detail … it is all muscle, a generous slice of thoughtful, ruminative life.
—— Rodney Welch , Washington PostThe curiously loose weave of Knausgaard’s prose allows it to return parts of the reader’s own life to them
—— Rivka Galchen , London Review of BooksA very striking debut novel … A swift, lithe and engaging read.
—— Stuart Kelly , Scotland on SundayAtmospheric and disquieting.
—— Sebastian Shakespeare , TatlerAssured, immersive and atmospheric.
—— Louise Rhind-Tutt , iNews
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