A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
**
[Calasso's] flow of associations leaves you feeling not out of your
depth, but smarter and better read. --The New York Times Book
Review**
**
The eighth part of Roberto Calasso's monumental series on the primal
forces of civilization**
The eighth part of Roberto Calasso's singular work in progress that
began in 1983 with The Ruin of Kasch, The Celestial Hunter is an
inspired and provocative exploration of mankind's relationship with
myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation.
There was a time, even before prehistory, when man was simply a
defenseless animal. The gods he worshiped took the form of other beasts
or were the patterns of the stars he saw above him each night in the
sky, which he transformed into figures and around which he created
stories. Soon, however, man learned to imitate the animals that attacked
him and he became a hunter. This transformation, Calasso posits, from
defenseless victim to hunter was a key moment, the first step on man's
ascendance to power. Suddenly the notion of the hunter became
fundamental. It would be developed over thousands of years through the
figures that became central to Greek mythology, including the
constellations. Among them was Orion, the celestial hunter, and his dog,
Sirius.
Vivid and strikingly original, and expertly translated from the Italian
by Richard Dixon, The Celestial Hunter traces how man created the
divine myths that would become the cornerstones of Western civilization.
As Calasso demonstrates, the repercussions of these ideas would echo
through history, from Paleolithic to modern times. And they would be the
product of one thing: the human mind.
