Book of All Books

A book that begins before Adam and ends after us. In this magisterial work by the Italian intellectual superstar Roberto Calasso figures of the Bible and its whole outline emerge in a new light: one that is often astonishing and disquieting as indeed—more than any other—is the book from which they originate.Roberto Calasso’s The Book of All Books is a narration that moves through the Bible as if through a forest where every branch—every verse—may offer some revelation. Where a man named Saul becomes the first king of a people because his father sent him off to search for some donkeys that had gone astray. Where in answer to an invitation from Jerusalem’s king the queen of a remote African realm spends three years leading a long caravan of young men girls dressed in purple and animals and with large quantities of spices to ask the king certain questions. And where a man named Abraham hears these words from a divine voice: “Go away from your land from your country and from the house of your father toward the land that I will show you”—words that reverberate throughout the Bible a story about a separation and a promise followed by many other separations and promises.The Book of All Books the tenth part of a series parallels in many ways the second part The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. There gods and heroes of the Greek myths revealed new physiognomies whereas here the age-old figures and stories of the Bible are illuminated anew.