Description
From the best-selling author of The Ingenious Language comes a meditation on rebuilding, recovery, and renewal that is also a fascinating portrait of antiquity's most complex and surprisingly modern hero.
In times of peace and prosperity, one can turn to Homer to learn valuable life lessons, to experience the thrills and terrors of war, and to read about hair-raising adventures in distant lands. But when things do not go as planned, when we unexpectedly find ourselves at the center of an epoch-defining upheaval, then, writes Andrea Marcolongo, we must look to Virgil's Aeneas for an example of adaptability and resilience.
In Marcolongo's fresh, nuanced portrayal, Virgil's Aeneas emerges as a multiform, deeply human hero, striking in his vulnerability and capacity for empathy. His journey of rebirth and rebuilding, from the ruins of Troy to the shores of Italy, teaches us that when all seems lost, with hope, perseverance, and a little bit of luck, we can seek and find new beginnings.
"Marcolongo is today's Montaigne...There is wisdom and grace here to last the ages."--André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name
Product Details
| Publisher | Europa Compass |
| Publish Date | May 10, 2022 |
| Pages | 256 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781609457495 |
| Dimensions | 7.0 X 4.7 X 0.8 inches | 0.3 pounds |
About the Author
Andrea Marcolongo is an Italian journalist, writer, Classics scholar, and former speech writer for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Ingenious Language was a bestseller in Italy and in many of the other dozen countries in which it has been published. She is also the author of The Heroic Measure. She lives in Paris, France.
Reviews
Praise for Starting from Scratch
"In book after book, Andrea Marcolongo has combined an inimitable voice with flawless erudition and great sensitivity... Starting from Scratch illuminates its subject with a modern light."--Le Monde
"A deep look at our all-too-human fragility... An impassioned and enthralling book."--Bon Culture (Italy)
"Through her personal reacquaintance with [the Aeneid] at a time of great distress, Andrea Marcolongo has brought it, as it were, back into the conversation and outside the confines of academia... An excellent translation by Will Schutt brilliantly serves Andrea Marcolongo's passionate endorsement of a work of literature written two millennia ago."--Ilaria Dagnini Brey, Reading in Translation
"Andrea Marcolongo has brought us a book from the future."--La Stampa (Italy)
Praise for The Ingenious Language
"An instant classic."--Mary Norris, The New Yorker
"Andrea Marcolongo's love of Ancient Greek is infectious in this brilliant meditation on language and life."―Bookriot
"[Andrea Marcolongo] shows how languages give us new ways of seeing and understanding the world."―The Guardian
"The Ingenious Language has the potential to change your sense of reality."―Refinery29
"Anyone who values the study of language will delight in this spirited defense of the effort being worth the reward."―Publishers Weekly
"[Andrea Marcolongo's] declaration of love for Ancient Greek does more than celebrate the virtues of its grammar, it shows us modern fools how this language can help us understand ourselves better and live a better life."―Le Monde
"The Ingenious Language is not a grammar text, but a love story with a language and its ability to affect our senses... Rather than reducing the strangeness of ancient Greek to a list of rules to be memorized, Marcolongo uses it to fascinate us, transforming nine linguistic peculiarities into existential questions."―La Stampa
"The Ingenious Language is an extraordinary, absolutely original book."―Italian Association for Classic Culture
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