The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony | Roberto Calasso

‘To decolonise a culture, you have to deal with the Underworld. It’s easy to forget our ‘civilised’ educated democracies are underpinned by the ancient Greek gods’ lust for domination and amusement. Books that reveal how we are unconsciously trapped in the mechanics of power are mostly deep imaginative prose works that can bring this dark ‘material’ out into the light. Roberto Calasso’s astonishing remix of the classical myths, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, runs from the rape of Europa by Zeus to the Olympian carnage of heroes at the siege of Troy, and returns the gods to their enthralling amoral role in the drama of human affairs.’ ~ Charlotte Du Cann, guest contributor to May 2022’s Rebel Library Recommends