The Temple of Iconoclasts [Paperback]

Juan Rodolfo Wilcock (Author), Lawrence Venuti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2000

Italian author Wilcock (1919-78) wrote many fascinating works -- including poetry, short fiction, novels, literary criticism, drama in verse and prose, and cultural journalism -- but this outstanding translation is the first to appear in English. Using short, encyclopaedic/biographical entries, Wilcock profiles people who are definitely iconoclasts. They tear down traditional beliefs and scientific notions on many different topics, from utopias to biology, offering a riveting array of ideas. Some real people with iconoclastic bents are included along with some bizarre fictional characters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Compellingly whimsical, alienated, pseudo-scientific, bizarre: all these adjectives describe this fiction in the form of a short reference work, the first book by admired Argentinean-Italian novelist Wilcock (1919-1978) to be published in English. Wilcock's early career in Argentina brought him close to the young Borges, and fans of Borges, Italo Calvino or Stanislaw Lem will recognize Wilcock's methods. The book (his best known in Italy) consists of short essays describing the lives of obsessive eccentrics, some real and some imaginary, with each entry giving significant dates, major works and summaries of the relevant obsessions. Some of the real people here seem stranger than fiction: Roger Babson was a rich American pseudoscientist who directed a foundation dedicated to isolating a gravity "atom" and finding a substance that could resist it. Another all-too-real oddball is John Cleves Symmes, whose arguments for a "Hollow Earth" inspired a story by Poe. Wilcock's greatest aesthetic successes come with the characters he makes up from scratch. Catalan director Llorenz Riber believed he was a rabbit, and therefore brought rabbits onstage in his avant-garde interpretations of Europe's classic plays: he also adapted, for the stage, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, in order to depict the thinker's famous "duck-rabbit." Wilcock's inventions get stranger as he moves on: "At the age of fifty-nine, the Belgian Henry Bucher was only forty-two." The telepathic hypnotist Jos? Vald?s y Prom sabotaged an 1878 congress of theologians and scientists by taking over their minds. So Wilcock proceeds, through 30 other oddly comic entries. Venuti renders Wilcock's Italian into lucid, captivating English, and offers a biographical introduction. Lovers of postmodern mind games should certainly start seeking out Wilcock's work--assuming they can be sure it really exists.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Italian author Wilcock (1919-78) wrote many fascinating works--including poetry, short fiction, novels, literary criticism, drama in verse and prose, and cultural journalism--but this outstanding translation is the first to appear in English. Using short, encyclopedic/biographical entries, Wilcock profiles people who are definitely iconoclasts. They tear down traditional beliefs and scientific notions on many different topics, from utopias to biology, offering a riveting array of ideas. Some real people with iconoclastic bents are included along with some bizarre fictional characters. One chapter is about Jesus Pica Planas, who lists as some of his inventions "an automobile made almost entirely of rubber to withstand accidents" and the very possible "multiple telephone that enables friendly, diverting conversations." The result is enlightening and entertaining reading. Recommended for most larger collections.
-Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Mercury House (April 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562791192
• ISBN-13: 978-1562791193
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #849,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)