It will be read and reread not as a treatise but as a story one of the most extraordinary that has ever been written of the origins of Western selfconsciousness Simon SchamaThe marriage of Cadmus and Harmony was the last time the gods of Olympus feasted alongside mortals What happened in the distant ages preceding it and in the generations that followed form the timeless tales of ancient Greek mythology In this masterful retelling of the myths we think we know Roberto Calasso illuminates the deepest questions of our existenceThe kind of book one comes across only once or twice in ones lifetime Joseph BrodskyA perfect work like no other Gore Vidal