Items related to The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
Synopsis
Cotta embarks on a journey in search of Ovid and finds himself in a place where the ancient world and the twentieth century are one
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Reviews
This beautifully evocative fable resets in contemporary time the Roman world of the poet Ovidius Naso, exiled in 8 A.D. to barbarous Tomi (in modern Bulgaria) on the Black Sea. Naso's friend Cotta is seeking the poet in Tomi, now an iron-mining town, among characters who are modern counterparts of mythic figures in Naso's Metamorphoses , in which humans were transformed into stars, animals, trees, rocks. Affirming their link to the savage landscape, these people reenact ancient myths, e.g., Dis and Proserpina, gods of Hades, are now Thies, a refugee German grave-digger and his quarrelsome fiancee. Cotta finds the theme of transformation in the mimes of carnival revelers, and in films projected on the slaughterhouse wall of Tereus the butcher. That great authors cannot be silenced, and that myth permeates our lives, are two messages of a book that sometimes stretches too far in its effort to emulate the style of Ovidian epic poetry. Wood's translation from the German is graceful. Ransmayr's first novel, The Terrors of Ice and Darkness , will appear in English in 1991.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This novel--currently being translated into 30 languages--evokes at its best the disintegration of ancient Rome, "a docile society that submitted to the surveillance of even its bedrooms." It is this bureaucratic, repressive society that banishes the poet Ovid. The publisher suggests that the book is a cultural/political fable. If so, it is as unclear as the steps the poet takes, which are retraced by his admirer, Cotta. In the remote port of Tomi strange metamorphoses occur: village idiot into stone, ropemaker into wolf. The reader is helped through the phantasmagoric events and myth-ridden landscape by a 36-page Ovidian repertory of characters, but even with the fine writing, the hailing of this " quest " novel as a modern masterpiece leaves this reader as mystified as the stumbling Cotta.
- Peter Bricklebank, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G080211167XI4N00
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The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
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Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G080211167XI3N10
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The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G080211167XI3N00
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The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G080211167XI3N10
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The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G080211167XI4N10
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Last World
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Fair. The poet Ovid, in his distress over his banishment from Rome, consigns the manuscript of his masterpiece, Metamorphoses, to the flames; years later, when rumors of his death reach Rome, his youthful admirer Cotta follows him to the remote Black Sea port of Tomi. Out of this story Christoph Ransmayr has fashioned an astonishing novel about a journey of adventure that has become Europe's most recent critical and best-selling literary sensation. The Last World is the story of a quest. As Cotta, following a trail of clues Ovid has left behind, searches for the exiled poet and his lost work, he discovers in the rust-corroded town of Tomi an ominous scene suffused with and dominated by Ovidian mythology, a transformed place where the ancient world meets the twentieth century. Cotta is lured into a visionary landscape that impersonates Ovid's vanished poem in which the familiar is forever transmuted in new and wondrous ways. In this world the village idiot turns to stone, the ravishingly beautiful whore disappears from the face of the earth, and the ropemaker takes on the guise of a wolf. These and other singular events furnish the pieces of a puzzle that Cotta assembles into a dramatic and bewitching story--a political and cultural fable about the end of time, the last world. Already acclaimed as a modern masterpiece and currently being translated into thirty languages, The Last World is destined to become one of the most important novels of our time. Ransmayr writes with dazzling power and sensuously charged language about the endlessly shifting flow of time, the lusty cycle of life in which the carrion of the past forever gives birth to the new. A metaphysical thriller both compelling and profound, The Last World draws the reader into a universe governed by the power of mythology, a world of decay on the brink of apocalypse. A novel about exile, censorship, and the destruction of the planet--as well as its constant renewal--The Last World is a cultural and political fable that is blazingly topical, yet timeless. Seller Inventory # 00100677329
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The Last World
Published by
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated, 1990
ISBN 10: 080211167X
ISBN 13: 9780802111678
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. 1st. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 10689074-20
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Last World
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Fair. The poet Ovid, in his distress over his banishment from Rome, consigns the manuscript of his masterpiece, Metamorphoses, to the flames; years later, when rumors of his death reach Rome, his youthful admirer Cotta follows him to the remote Black Sea port of Tomi. Out of this story Christoph Ransmayr has fashioned an astonishing novel about a journey of adventure that has become Europe's most recent critical and best-selling literary sensation. The Last World is the story of a quest. As Cotta, following a trail of clues Ovid has left behind, searches for the exiled poet and his lost work, he discovers in the rust-corroded town of Tomi an ominous scene suffused with and dominated by Ovidian mythology, a transformed place where the ancient world meets the twentieth century. Cotta is lured into a visionary landscape that impersonates Ovid's vanished poem in which the familiar is forever transmuted in new and wondrous ways. In this world the village idiot turns to stone, the ravishingly beautiful whore disappears from the face of the earth, and the ropemaker takes on the guise of a wolf. These and other singular events furnish the pieces of a puzzle that Cotta assembles into a dramatic and bewitching story--a political and cultural fable about the end of time, the last world. Already acclaimed as a modern masterpiece and currently being translated into thirty languages, The Last World is destined to become one of the most important novels of our time. Ransmayr writes with dazzling power and sensuously charged language about the endlessly shifting flow of time, the lusty cycle of life in which the carrion of the past forever gives birth to the new. A metaphysical thriller both compelling and profound, The Last World draws the reader into a universe governed by the power of mythology, a world of decay on the brink of apocalypse. A novel about exile, censorship, and the destruction of the planet--as well as its constant renewal--The Last World is a cultural and political fable that is blazingly topical, yet timeless. Seller Inventory # CIN080211167XA
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The Last World
Seller: Library House Internet Sales, Grand Rapids, OH, U.S.A.
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Hardcover. Condition: Fair. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. Cotta embarks on a journey in search of Ovid and finds himself in a place where the ancient world and the twentieth century are one Former library book. Foxing is present on one or more pages. Solid binding. Moderate edgewear on the boards. Please note the image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item. Ex-Library. Seller Inventory # 123596344
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The Last World: A Novel With an Ovidian Repertory
Published by
Grove Weidenfeld April 1990, 1990
ISBN 10: 080211167X
ISBN 13: 9780802111678
Used
Hardcover
Seller: R Bookmark, Youngtown, AZ, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Collectible-Good. Seller Inventory # 81641