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Ackroyd, Peter The Plato Papers: A Prophecy ISBN 13: 9780385497688

The Plato Papers: A Prophecy - Hardcover

 
9780385497688: The Plato Papers: A Prophecy
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At the turn of the thirty-eighth century, London's greatest orator, Plato, regularly delivers bravura public lectures on the long, tumultuous history of what is now a tranquil city. Plato focuses particularly on the obscured and confusing era that began in A.D. 1500, which he calls the Age of Mouldwarp. Basing his work on an incomplete archaeological record, Plato pieces scraps of evidence together into a semicoherent whole. He lectures on the clown Sigmund Freud's comic masterpiece, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, and on the prolific author Charles D.'s greatest novel, The Origin of Species. And explores the confusing rituals of Mouldwarp, including the cult of webs and nets that covered and enslaved the population.
In approximately A.D. 2300, when the sun went out and the planet fell into a thousand years of darkness, the Age of Mouldwarp came to a close, and the dark Age of Witspell began. But this epoch holds little interest for Plato, and in the midst of his public performances he begins a dialogue with his soul that leads him closer to the citizens of Mouldwarp than any strict historical inquiry might allow.

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Review:
-Richly revealing. . . . Unlike anything else Peter Ackroyd has written. . . . A jeu d'esprit.-
--The New York Times Book Review
-A lively tale and an invigorating meditation on the changelessness, after no matter how many eons, of human nature.-
--Time
-A serious divertissement, a brilliant fabulation that is the product of a playful, engaged, and well-stocked mind.-
--The Boston Globe
-A little book that raises some big questions. . . . You can finish it in a couple of hours. But if you read it carefully, you'll be thinking about it for days.-
--Philadelphia Inquirer
-Peter Ackroyd is a visionary, as The Plato Papers makes clear. This is one of the oddest but most important and original novels to appear in many years. This masterpiece of contemporary writing will thrill and entertain readers for years to come, but it will do more than that: it will enlarge their vision, stimulating organs long forgotten and never known.-
--Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and Robert Frost: A Life
-What makes The Plato Papers notable is not its fantastic invention but its intelligence...Excellently written...with a truly Socratic curiosity, making The Plato Papers a philosophical good read.-
--Malcolm Bradbury, Financial Times
-An invigorating mixture of satire, history, philosophy, morality, and linguistic investigation...it's like T.S. Eliot on speed meets Martian poetry but with better jokes.-
--Michele Robert, The Times
-Articulate, comic, wise, delicate, melancholy, exquisite. It simultaneously deconstructs the story of the past and builds its own myth. In short, this is a carefully pulsed breath of a book, with an impact that sneaks into one's dreams.-
--John Clute, The Independent

-A fantastic invention--excellently written.---Malcolm Bradbury

"Richly revealing. . . . Unlike anything else Peter Ackroyd has written. . . . A jeu d'esprit."
--The New York Times Book Review

"A lively tale and an invigorating meditation on the changelessness, after no matter how many eons, of human nature."
--Time

"A serious divertissement, a brilliant fabulation that is the product of a playful, engaged, and well-stocked mind."
--The Boston Globe

"A little book that raises some big questions. . . . You can finish it in a couple of hours. But if you read it carefully, you'll be thinking about it for days."
--Philadelphia Inquirer

"Peter Ackroyd is a visionary, as The Plato Papers makes clear. This is one of the oddest but most important and original novels to appear in many years. This masterpiece of contemporary writing will thrill and entertain readers for years to come, but it will do more than that: it will enlarge their vision, stimulating organs long forgotten and never known."
--Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and Robert Frost: A Life

"What makes The Plato Papers notable is not its fantastic invention but its intelligence...Excellently written...with a truly Socratic curiosity, making The Plato Papers a philosophical good read."
--Malcolm Bradbury, Financial Times

"An invigorating mixture of satire, history, philosophy, morality, and linguistic investigation...it's like T.S. Eliot on speed meets Martian poetry but with better jokes."
--Michele Robert, The Times

"Articulate, comic, wise, delicate, melancholy, exquisite. It simultaneously deconstructs the story of the past and builds its own myth. In short, this is a carefully pulsed breath of a book, with an impact that sneaks into one's dreams."
--John Clute, The Independent

"A fantastic invention--excellently written."--Malcolm Bradbury
About the Author:
PETER ACKROYD is the award-winning author of the recent national bestseller The Life of Thomas More. His biographies--including T. S. Eliot, Dickens, and Blake--are as prized as his novels, which include Chatterton, Hawksmoor, and, most recently, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree and Milton in America. He lives in London, where he is at work on his next book, London: The Biography, a history of the city.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherDoubleday
  • Publication date2000
  • ISBN 10 0385497687
  • ISBN 13 9780385497688
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages173
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780385497695: The Plato Papers: A Prophesy

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ISBN 10:  0385497695 ISBN 13:  9780385497695
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2001
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    Vintage, 2000
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  • 9781856197014: The Plato Papers

    Chatto..., 1999
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