- Hardcover: 271 pages
- Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; 1st edition (Aug 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0374526109
- ISBN-13: 978-0374526108
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.7 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,024,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
'The Road to Delphi' offers a sympathetic and entertaining account of humanity's persistent belief in 'signs'. Beginning with the oracles of ancient Greece, Michael Wood traces the evolution of the 'culture of the oracle' in literature and in popular culture.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From the Publisher
An endlessly intriguing topic - exploring the human desire to know the future, and the way this is linked to our passion for riddles and puzzles.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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5 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Starts fine; falls off
7 Sep 2008
Format:Paperback
Has ever a book started so wonderfully and then died off so quickly? The first 30 or so pages are wonderful, full of striking insights ("Fears and hopes change as history changes, and so do the relations between fears and hopes. But the balancing of fears and hopes is a human constant.") and setting the stage for a mythic book about a mysterious subject.
And then it all dissolves into an incoherent muddle of random observations and overlong discussions. You first begin to wonder when he goes on and on and on about the Oedipus story and in particular the road junction that affected his fate. Eventually, you begin to realize that he is not going to discuss the afterlife of oracles at all, other than how a smattering of later literary figures used them.
The scope of the book is, therefore, a purely literary assessment of oracles. No real input from the realm of history, anthropology or sociology, to say nothing of theology. No discussion of Delphi's real history at all, actually. He does not try to assess the place of Delphi in ancient culture, nor why that changed over time. It is true that his literary references come from a wide range of cultures and periods, but, just because of that, it is not clear how they add up into anything.
Even more frustrating, at least to me, is that two striking things about Delphi that seem to us moderns to be real anomalies - the inaccuracy of some of the oracles and the occasional political corruption of the oracle - are not discussed in any depth. That Delphi urged Athens not to resist Persia, that Athens inverted the oracle to support its policy, and that Delphi was still venerated after Athens won would seem worth a look in, but is ignored.
And then it all dissolves into an incoherent muddle of random observations and overlong discussions. You first begin to wonder when he goes on and on and on about the Oedipus story and in particular the road junction that affected his fate. Eventually, you begin to realize that he is not going to discuss the afterlife of oracles at all, other than how a smattering of later literary figures used them.
The scope of the book is, therefore, a purely literary assessment of oracles. No real input from the realm of history, anthropology or sociology, to say nothing of theology. No discussion of Delphi's real history at all, actually. He does not try to assess the place of Delphi in ancient culture, nor why that changed over time. It is true that his literary references come from a wide range of cultures and periods, but, just because of that, it is not clear how they add up into anything.
Even more frustrating, at least to me, is that two striking things about Delphi that seem to us moderns to be real anomalies - the inaccuracy of some of the oracles and the occasional political corruption of the oracle - are not discussed in any depth. That Delphi urged Athens not to resist Persia, that Athens inverted the oracle to support its policy, and that Delphi was still venerated after Athens won would seem worth a look in, but is ignored.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Elegant, startling and refreshingly original
6 Sep 2008
Format:Hardcover
It's a delight to pick up a book of this calibre. As Wood explores the depth and breadth of the ten ancient oracles he tells a vivid tale encompassing Kafka, Oedipus Rex, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, The Matrix and Macbeth, as well as Delphi, Dionysus and popular horoscopes. The Road to Delphi : Scenes from the History of Oracles is elegant, startling and refreshingly original. I couldn't put it down.
13 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Very very good
18 Aug 2004
Format:Hardcover
This is an enjoyable book, one which can be read straight through or left at one end of the sofa and picked up and continued when the mood strikes one. Or when the omens are promising. The author is learned and writes gracefully, evoking an earlier age -- or many earlier ages -- when literary critics and scholars wrote lucid, elegant, and insightful prose for their peers as well as for the educated -- or simply the interested -- general reader.
I won't say much about the topic, oracles, except to say that we homo sapiens seem to have a rather persistent propensity to be afflicted by oracle-ism: a kind of prophetic wisdom, at odds with commonsensical or empirical knowledge, and therefore acquired on the cheap. And convincing because it implies a flattering interest in us by significant powers.
I won't say much about the topic, oracles, except to say that we homo sapiens seem to have a rather persistent propensity to be afflicted by oracle-ism: a kind of prophetic wisdom, at odds with commonsensical or empirical knowledge, and therefore acquired on the cheap. And convincing because it implies a flattering interest in us by significant powers.
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