The Road to Delphi: The Life and Afterlife of Oracles

by Michael Wood

Book Overview

An erudite, eloquent, and wide-ranging examination of oracles by one of our most creative literary critics For thousands of years, and in many different cultures, cities, and states, individuals have consulted oracles in time of need. In this fascinating exploration of the history and enduring popularity of oracles, Michael Wood examines how they are interpreted and why. The inherent ambiguity of many oracular pronouncements and the ingenuity and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374526109
• ISBN13: 9780374526108
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 271 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Elegant, startling and refreshingly original

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.

Very very good

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.