Ka (Penguin Modern Classics)

I first read this book four continents and many years ago, obviously as you move you discard. I bought it again recently and was happy to become lost in these tales.

Robert Calasso’s (1941- 2021) Ka (1996 / English translation by Tim Parks, 1998) is not a book but a State of Grace. Ka is the third book in Calasso’s encyclopedic set of eleven books about the history of human fate published from 1983 to 2020. To say that Ka is the greatest book about India is an understatement. I cannot place any other author of a book about India above Calasso. Written in a hypnotic prose, Ka is a hallucinatory cascade of “stories of the mind and gods of India” from Prajapati to Krsna that produces a flash of eternity: “These things never happened, they are always.” Suffusing Ka is Calasso’s visionary dazzle of knowledge, commentary, storytelling and writing that awakens us to the primordial enigmas at the core of human existence. Calasso’s wisdom is cosmic. Ka is celestial. Every page of Ka has a sentence or a passage that we may want to recite as a daily prayer and feel blest. If you wish to save your soul, read Ka. If you wish to know what a great book is made of, read Ka. If you wish to know who is a great writer, read Ka. This Penguin “Modern Classics” edition of Ka with a Bikaner painting of Garuda as its cover illustration is a sacred object. As for Calasso’s text, it is a gnostic chant. I cannot thank Calasso enough for his book which is a gift to humanity. I cannot praise Calasso enough.

Tutto ok. Il libro è quello che avevo ordinato ed è nuovo e integro. Il contenuto può piacere o no, ma questo non dipende da chi lo vende

The most intelligible and academic book on the subject. Pure intellect unsullied by this or that approach ( colonial, Indian, Marxist etc.) Such appreciation, and actually retelling, of the Hindu Myths is a rarity and I think is the only ine of its kind. I wish this was compulsory reading in all higher education courses on Indian history, culture, religion and Geography. Thank you Roberto Calasso. Thank you indeed.

I earlier had the book but kist it somehow.Ordered again but was heartbroken to receive this photocopy of the book.Earlier book had good quality papers and coloured drawings while this is not which can be easily seen by the photos I shared along.