CALASSO: OUR NEW MEME WRITER

Let me introduce you to Roberto Calasso.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calasso

Put away your Stirners and Evolas, your Joyces and Wallaces: he's our new meme.

>Owner of most aesthetic publishing house of the world: Adelphi (also one of the most important Italian Publishing houses, first introducing Nietzsche, Guenon, Kerenyi, W.F. Otto and many many others to the Italian public).
>Has read every book ever, even you diary.
>Author of an unnamned magnum opus counting (to now) 8 novel/essay or whatever you would like to call the things he writes
>mixes anthropology, esotericism, philosophy, historical anecdotes and storytelling
>magnum opus meant to explain everything about everything
>basically a living Renaissance man
>Last Italian intellectual alive
>Possibly crypto-nazi
>Accused of leading a satanic revolution to reintroduce hedonistic pagan cults (Cfr. 'Gli Adelphi della Dissoluzione')
>Books are available in English
>Just as your favorite writers, you'll never fully get what he's saying
>You can keep playing with his books forever


What the fuck are you waiting for? Why are you not reading Calasso yet? Run to your local bookstore, NOW! This is /ourguy/!
Reading suggestions:
Essay - Literature and the Gods
"Narrative" (or whatever you'd call his non-non-fiction works) - The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (second of the magnum opus, works well as a stand-alone intro to Calasso's style).

Other urls found in this thread:

theparisreview.org/interviews/6168/roberto-calasso-the-art-of-fiction-no-217-roberto-calasso
youtube.com/watch?v=okwJB3FRDo8&t=615s
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Also, the guy looked like a fucking god when he was young.
Don't lie: you would have fucked him.

Check this interview if you are curious about his life. There are details of him writing his dissertation on hashish in London.

theparisreview.org/interviews/6168/roberto-calasso-the-art-of-fiction-no-217-roberto-calasso

I've been pushing Calasso for years, glad he's finally getting some recognition on here.

Here's a good interview between him and a fawning Italian succubus he introduced to the esoteric rituals of Venus.

youtube.com/watch?v=okwJB3FRDo8&t=615s

That white bitch needs to check her cultural appropriation.

OP here

I'm working with you man!! I'm doing the same. In Italy he's actually pretty known (at least among people who like that 'unrepentant ex-nazis with mystical leanings' kind of literature)

thanks will check it out next time I go back to Italy and pick up his book
BTW any other good less know writers published on Adelphi I should check out? I can recommend Daumal, Schwob and Caraco (last one for French or Italian speakers only)

There is stuffy by Carlo Rovelli - divulgative works on science - I have never read, but a friend told me they are good.
I personally enjoy Walter Friederich Otto. Also, anything from Giorgio Colli if you are into Greek philosophy/myth (especially presocratics).

Also, God tier: suggests to read Plato's Republic.

>Last Italian intellectual alive

'no'

There is no way this guy wasn't spoofed in Foucault's Pendulum, he reads like one of the characters

>last italian intellectual

what the fuck are you implying, fight me irl
Agamben aside, there's also Perniolla, Toni Negri, the guys from Wu Ming and a shitload of other anarchists I haven't bothered to read. Are you trying to pull a crypto/pol/ thread here? Because if you are, you'll be relegating your meme writer to never being a real meme, no one can stand you faggots shitting up this board 24/7

>leftwing
>not a meme

t. Diego Fusaro

>I will completely disregard this author because I'm a child who can't fathom people might think differently

what did he mean by this

These are all low tier, especially Wu Ming.
Not trying to pull a /pol/ here, but I honestly think Eco was the only one keeping up with him (with opposite views, I would say).
But none of the other living writers have the scope, the culture, and the influence (through Adelphi) of Calasso. He's basically promoting a whole worldview through his work as a publisher and as a writer.

Also generally, memewise: people with esoterical leanings are way funnier than people without them. And the problem I have with leftwing intellectuals is that they rarely have esoterical leanings.

>Fusaro
>only a meme
>not an intellectual

Calasso is the perfect synthesis. Diversely from Fusaro, you can take him seriously!


I didn't disregard him, I just don't think he would be a good meme. There's a lot of good authors who wouldn't be good memes. Most of them are leftwing.
For as much as I enjoy leftwing stuff, they usually don't make good memes.

Wu Ming writes fiction, but very good fiction (I've only read two of their books but both were great, and I'd go as far as putting Q as one of my favourite books ever and definitely one of the books that influenced me the most), but you gotta be memeing me if you think Agamben is not one of the most well read and one of, if not the most influential writer alive when it comes to continental philosophy.

He came to a college in my country and it was like a rock star was giving a speech, people were going absolutely crazy, I remember I met a group of girls who had crossed 3 states just to hear him speak.

In that case learn how fucking greentext works, you just implied that all leftwing authors are memes just by virtue of being leftwing. Sounds more like someone somewhere on the internet dissed this guy and you decided to come here and show everyone how much this very intelligent and obviously unbiased guy is a genius and also your husbando

The mere fact that you imply Negri or Agamben aren't intellectuals, think Eco is somehow a leftwinger makes me think you're not as half as intelligent as you think you are. You should probably go read some Rafaelle Ventura, who's what Fusaro would be if he wasn' such an absolute pleb.

Tryhard thread. Just mention Calasso in a shelf thread or elsewhere, Veeky Forums will start memeing.

I've been meaning to read Ka.

Wu Ming's best fiction is Q. The others are good adventure books, but not much more.

As for Agamben, what I have read of him sounds to me like anthropology with philosophical language. He fits with the current worldview and talks about

Yeah, sorry, I did the green text wrong. I didn't mean all leftwingers are memes, I meant the opposite.
Never said they are not intellectuals, though. Nor that Eco was leftwing. I just think they can't keep up with Calasso.
And why do you insist on Fusaro being a pleb? I know he's a pleb, I've heard him speak.

I've only said he's a pleb once, someone else thinks he is as well.
And I don't know what you've read from Agamben, but to take, for example, L'Aperto and call it anthropology (or even thinking you cannot do philosophy anthropologically) is pretty close minded. And the only reason why I mention L'Aperto instead of Homo Sacer is because I'm currently reading through the series in order and to dismiss it as anything but genius level philosophy is dumb as fuck my dude.

Also, dismissing Wu Ming, a collective of fiction writers, for writing fiction seems to me like you're picking a bone more than anything. The other book I've read by them is New Thing and if this was a Pynchon novella Veeky Forums would fawn over it like it was Carli herself, it's by no means a "adventure book", albeit I'll grant that a lot of it's themes are dated / redundant as fuck, they're only so for the converted, if a convertee reads it I assume he'll take a lot more than I did.

I personally do not like Agamben, but I would not disregard him as an intellectual. I do think it is possible to do philosophy with antropology (Calasso is great in doing this) but I do not think one should disguise anthropological reasoning as philosophical, which seems to me what Agambem, Foucault and similar authors have been doing for decades.
That said, I do not think their work amounts to nothing. They have had great importance and have been influential.

Again, my point was not to 'disregard' other people. I just think Calasso is on another level, though. I have read tons of stuff that is not 'genius level', as much as anyone in college: here I am talking about someone that I do think is a genius - or, at least, who could be memed as such.

And Wu Ming are dated and redundant. I don't know what you mean by the converted/convertee thing. And no, nothing written by Wu Ming is even remotely comparable to Pynchon. Pynchon, who is by no mean my favorite author, is both stylistically and thematically superior. The only reason why you could compare them is because Wu Ming write historical stuff with pulp undertones. I think Pynchon is doing much more than that, having more depth both in the things he says and in the way he says them.

That said, I hope you'll stop feeling butthurt because you had the sensation I was disrespecting your religion/ideology (or whatever Wu Ming converted you to), because I wasn't.

Tried yesterday, never saw them memeing though. :(

>And the problem I have with leftwing intellectuals is that they rarely have esoterical leanings.

While I do see your point, some leftist jews, like Benjamin, are basically kabbahlists/similar under the guise of marxism

There are exceptions of course. But what I experienced is that most leftwing intellectuals tend toward either materalistic or relativistic positions (this latter in rather articulated forms). I do not share these philosophical premises with them, so I end up disagreeing with most of them - though they advance very interesting ideas, sometimes.

he seems good, thanks for the rec

>W.F. Otto
His Homeric Gods and Dionysis along with Calasso's Marriage, Burkert's Greek Religion, and Brann's Homeric Moments=some of the best secondary literature on Homer and Greek myth. Also, Pater's Greek Studies is.. interesting.
For the Aeneid I recommend W.F. Jackson-Knight's Roman Vergil- a classic.
If youre new to Calasso pick up his short essay collection Literature and the Gods so that you can begin to fathom his central notion, Absolute Literature. He never disappoints.

Agreed. Nobody seem to read Otto anymore in universities, though (beside Nietzsche scholars) but I still find his stuff very interesting and very well written.
I have really loved literature and the gods!

Right , i ordered 100 euros worth of his books , lets get started

Hope i can start memeing soon lads

Same, looking forward to some hardcore memeing post-summer

Great job guys! This is going to be Calasso's summer, a beautiful hot summer of pagan mysteries and sweet, tantric, vedic love-making.