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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 23, 2018
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2022
The book orbits Talleyrand, harkening back to him as the archetypical modern man, not to be understood or, more to the point, criticized as a scrupulous, spineless chameleon continually changing with the color of the time, but rather as a man who understood how to surf the turbulent tides. Well within the maelstrom of multiple revolutions, Talleyrand seems to have realized that the old world ideals died with the ancien regime, and only a fool would cling to principles, any principle, in a world that had just unwittingly declared itself principle-less. Calasso focuses on Talleyrand’s utilization of concepts such as ‘legitimacy’ and ‘convention’ in order to highlight that, without being rooted in anything inviolable and absolute, these are simply social constructs easily toppled, as malleable as they are dangerous.
The Ruin of Kasch does deal heavily with the French Revolution, so it is a great read for anyone who already knows something about that period. Calasso understood it as the epicenter of a world-wide earthquake, a populist invitation that would usher in waves of turmoil. But in externalizing a potential too long tethered to the ancien regime, man doomed itself to perpetual emptiness by never allowing itself to acknowledge a limit. Always seeking to go further, advance more, accumulate more, to make everything in its own image. Don’t misinterpret, this book is not an anti-progressive screed, rather a diagnostic on why liberal-capitalism cannot solve the spiritual crisis unleashed by this fusion.
A little more than halfway through, the subject of the book shifts its focus to the limits of literature and knowledge itself, as through the writings of early/mid 19th century philosophers, including a brief discursive on Marx. In his discussion of philosopher Max Stirner and the French writer Sainte-Beuve, Calasso elucidates that even attempting to fill our spiritual void with raw philosophy, literature or even science fundamentally leaves the seeker at the whim of the crushing gnaw of nihilism; that in our desire to study, classify and understand everything, we erase any trace of magic in the world. The limit must exist. That in our secular world, our faith is directed toward ourselves, our system, our belief in technology, in progress, and this is an inescapable re-enactment of the collective need for some type of religious system. We have dismissed God in favor of ideology. This is the age, to quote Stirner, of “pious atheism.”
It is a very good book, however it does service best those with some background on the French Revolution and even a cursory knowledge of 19th century Europe. I would not read this if you haven’t read anything else by Calasso OR you don’t have the aforementioned groundwork. He is a challenging yet rewarding author, truly one of a kind. You probably won’t understand the whole thing, but there are some really good gems in this book that will challenge you and potentially change your worldview, and even the sections I didn’t entirely understand were master-classes in sentence construction. Parts of this book did leave me kind of depressed, I must admit, but fundamentally I am glad I read it.
An Honest Analysis of the Origins of our Modern Spiritual Crisis
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2022
Calasso may well be the world’s premier impressionist writer. This is his first book, written in 1983 and only translated in English in 1994, and this review is for the Weaver and Sartarelli translation. Having read a few of his books before this, I had the advantage of being familiar with his writing style. He writes in snippets, anecdotes and fragments, and while this can be construed as disjointed and rambling, the reader must remember that Calasso’s thoughts are revealed through the images as they are constructed by the raw words; through a series of collated impressions. He is a literal writer in the most literal sense: words ordered on a page build an image. To focus on retention or whether one is following the narrative correctly is wasteful, rather drop into the book and allow yourself to be led by the currents of his thoughts.Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2022
The book orbits Talleyrand, harkening back to him as the archetypical modern man, not to be understood or, more to the point, criticized as a scrupulous, spineless chameleon continually changing with the color of the time, but rather as a man who understood how to surf the turbulent tides. Well within the maelstrom of multiple revolutions, Talleyrand seems to have realized that the old world ideals died with the ancien regime, and only a fool would cling to principles, any principle, in a world that had just unwittingly declared itself principle-less. Calasso focuses on Talleyrand’s utilization of concepts such as ‘legitimacy’ and ‘convention’ in order to highlight that, without being rooted in anything inviolable and absolute, these are simply social constructs easily toppled, as malleable as they are dangerous.
The Ruin of Kasch does deal heavily with the French Revolution, so it is a great read for anyone who already knows something about that period. Calasso understood it as the epicenter of a world-wide earthquake, a populist invitation that would usher in waves of turmoil. But in externalizing a potential too long tethered to the ancien regime, man doomed itself to perpetual emptiness by never allowing itself to acknowledge a limit. Always seeking to go further, advance more, accumulate more, to make everything in its own image. Don’t misinterpret, this book is not an anti-progressive screed, rather a diagnostic on why liberal-capitalism cannot solve the spiritual crisis unleashed by this fusion.
A little more than halfway through, the subject of the book shifts its focus to the limits of literature and knowledge itself, as through the writings of early/mid 19th century philosophers, including a brief discursive on Marx. In his discussion of philosopher Max Stirner and the French writer Sainte-Beuve, Calasso elucidates that even attempting to fill our spiritual void with raw philosophy, literature or even science fundamentally leaves the seeker at the whim of the crushing gnaw of nihilism; that in our desire to study, classify and understand everything, we erase any trace of magic in the world. The limit must exist. That in our secular world, our faith is directed toward ourselves, our system, our belief in technology, in progress, and this is an inescapable re-enactment of the collective need for some type of religious system. We have dismissed God in favor of ideology. This is the age, to quote Stirner, of “pious atheism.”
It is a very good book, however it does service best those with some background on the French Revolution and even a cursory knowledge of 19th century Europe. I would not read this if you haven’t read anything else by Calasso OR you don’t have the aforementioned groundwork. He is a challenging yet rewarding author, truly one of a kind. You probably won’t understand the whole thing, but there are some really good gems in this book that will challenge you and potentially change your worldview, and even the sections I didn’t entirely understand were master-classes in sentence construction. Parts of this book did leave me kind of depressed, I must admit, but fundamentally I am glad I read it.
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Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Not an easy read !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 7, 2020Giorgia Fiorio
32 years ahead our time. Frightful and Genial!
Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on June 12, 2015
