From the best-selling author of The Ingenious Language comes a
meditation on rebuilding, recovery, and renewal that is also a
fascinating portrait of antiquity's most complex and surprisingly modern
hero.
In times of peace and prosperity, one can turn to Homer to learn
valuable life lessons, to experience the thrills and terrors of war, and
to read about hair-raising adventures in distant lands. But when things
do not go as planned, when we unexpectedly find ourselves at the center
of an epoch-defining upheaval, then, writes Andrea Marcolongo, we must
look to Virgil's Aeneas for an example of adaptability and resilience.
In Marcolongo's fresh, nuanced portrayal, Virgil's Aeneas emerges as a
multiform, deeply human hero, striking in his vulnerability and capacity
for empathy. His journey of rebirth and rebuilding, from the ruins of
Troy to the shores of Italy, teaches us that when all seems lost, with
hope, perseverance, and a little bit of luck, we can seek and find new
beginnings.
"Marcolongo is today's Montaigne...There is wisdom and grace here to
last the ages."--André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name