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The way of all flesh : the romance of ruins / Midas Dekkers ; translated from the Dutch by Sherry Marx-Macdonald.
Author
Dekkers, Midas, 1946-
[Browse]
Uniform title
Vergankelijkeid.
English
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Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
1st American ed.
Published/Created
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Description
280 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Availability
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
ReCAP - Remote Storage
QH529 .D4513 2000
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Details
Subject(s)
Aging
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Life cycles (Biology)
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Summary note
"Aged buildings are usually pulled down or restored. Aging people desperately try to act and look young because novelty, youth, and beauty are equated in our minds with what is desirable. Mankind alone refuses nature's model and is bothered by the realization that "life is a way of dying slowly." But, by ignoring or evading the lure of decay, are we simply trying to escape from the truth?"
"Midas Dekkers argues that things are at their most beautiful when they deteriorate, provided they are given the chance. With the idiosyncratic erudition of the European intellectual - Roberto Calasso and Umberto Eco come to mind - Dekkers stresses that our aversion to decay and mortality makes our lives shallow. This is the meditative essay as Fellini might have written it; Dekkers asserts that ancient Rome's days of decline were its finest. The Way of All Flesh is at once a wonderfully witty book about the inevitable ruin of everything from bodies to works of art to ideals and a profound meditation on what it means to outlive one's usefulness, when the wheel of fortune has gone full circle."--Jacket.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (p. [267]-274) and index.
Contents
The Stairway of Life
Romantic Ruins
Crumbling on a Grand Scale
As Good as New
Old Seed
The Ravages of Time
Ashes and Dust
Souvenirs
Everlasting Life
Decay or Fulfilment?
Show 7 more Contents items
ISBN
0374286825 ((alk. paper))
9780374286828 ((alk. paper))
LCCN
00042677
OCLC
44425389
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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