Herbert, Zbigniew

New York. 1999. February 1999. Ecco Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. Remainder Mark On Bottom Edge. 0880016183. Translated from the Polish by John & Bogdana Carpenter. 86 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Michaela Sullivan. keywords: Literature Essays Mythology Poland Translated Poetry. FROM THE PUBLISHER - This new prose collection from the late Zbigniew Herbert, available for the first time in English, is a witty, sage retelling of myths and tales ‘simple and as old as the world' (‘Endymion'). ‘Herbert never simply retells a myth; instead, he presents a re-creation of it and emphasizes a narrative,' explain translators John and Bogdana Carpenter in their foreword. ‘The old story or fragmentary text serves as a canvas for a new story that he carries quite far from its original point of departure. It is a springboard for a broader exploration of human behavior. . The `mythological essay' becomes a twentieth-century philosophical parable.' Hybrids of the short story and the essay, the eleven pieces in The King of the Ants present Herbert's very different ‘apocryphal' views of the mythological past. The volume's title story considers the tension between humankind's ‘solemn idleness' and ‘progress - that treacherous force.' Other essays include a short tragic tale (‘Hecuba'), an ode to the mythic suffering of ‘the catatonic of mythology' (‘Atlas'), and a droll look at the violent struggle between Heracles and the multiheaded beast Cerberus (‘The Infernal Dog'). The renowned poet/essayist Zbigniew Herbert interprets, with characteristic irony and sanity, the contemporary experience through the perspective of myth in this final prose collection. inventory #36834 ISBN: 0880016183.