Ardor
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ISBN10: 0374535647
ISBN13: 9780374535643
Trade Paperback
432 Pages
$25.00
CA$35.00
In this revelatory volume, Roberto Calasso, whom The Paris Review has called "a literary institution," explores the ancient texts known as the Vedas. Little is known about the Vedic people, who lived more than three thousand years ago in northern India: They left behind almost no objects, images, or ruins. They created no empires. Even the soma, the likely hallucinogenic plant that appears at the center of some of their rituals, has not been identified with any certainty. Only a "Parthenon of words" remains: verses and formulations suggesting a daring understanding of life.
"If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities," writes Calasso, "they could have replied: we did not seek power, but rapture." This is the ardor of the Vedic world, a burning intensity that is always present, both in the mind and in the cosmos.
With his signature erudition and profound sense of the past, Calasso explores the enigmatic web of ritual and myth that defines the Vedas. Often at odds with modern thought, these texts illuminate the nature of consciousness more vividly than anything else has managed to till now. Following the "hundred paths" of the Satapatha Brahmana, an impressive exegesis of Vedic ritual, Ardor indicates that it may be possible to reach what is closest by passing through that which is most remote, as "the whole of Vedic India was an attempt to think further."
Reviews
Praise for Ardor
"To this philosophical skepticism about modernity, Calasso has contributed a bracing genealogy of ideas, which transcends many contemporary conceits about literature and philosophy . . . Calasso’s prose is scrupulously lucid and elegant in Richard Dixon’s translation . . . Ardor outlines, in its own quirky way, that long-overdue and genuine intellectual cosmopolitanism."—Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times Books Review
"Ardor describes a journey deep into the heart of Indo-European civilization, and with Calasso as our guide, it's a journey well worth taking."—Rain Taxi
“Ardor is Calasso's mode in his serpentine, allusive, and expansive readings . . . provocative . . . Calasso's profuse, high-wire exegesis brings the intricacies and marvels of Vedic thought vividly and evocatively to life.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist
“[A] careful, thoughtful, and detailed exploration . . . Richard Dixon's supple and elegant translation brings Calasso's poetic meditations to life. Readers will return again and again for wisdom and insight.”—Publishers Weekly
“Illuminating . . . The author pursues his own quest for enlightenment by questioning, treading carefully and humbling himself before a body of knowledge that has not always been well-served by his Western predecessors. . . . 'The whole of Vedic India was an attempt to think further,' writes Calasso. He demands no less from his readers.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Calasso is not only immensely learned; he is one of the most original thinkers and writers we have today.”—Charles Simic
“Roberto Calasso [is] the most inquisitively suggestive literary critic in the world today.”—Thomas McGonigle, Los Angeles Times
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
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I
REMOTE BEINGS
They were remote beings. Remote not only from modern man but from their ancient contemporaries. Distant not just as another culture, but as another celestial body. So distant that the point from...
About the author
Roberto Calasso; Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon
