“Last Kingdom is a set of books that . . . is neither philosophical argumentation nor little disparate, scholarly essays, nor novelistic narrative; gradually, for me, all genres have fallen away.”
So writes Pascal Quignard of his monumental book series, Last Kingdom. In the latest volume, The Fount of Time, he focuses on the paradoxically immediate presence in our lives of the deepest, most distant past. He explores this subject through a multitude of mediums: fragments of autobiography; curious folktales; literary snippets; historical anecdotes both classical and modern; ruminations on biology, archaeology, and linguistics. Using all of these forms, he confronts dimensions of human experience which, though customarily conveyed in legend, myth, and dreams, run somehow beneath the everyday world and yet are part of our most tangible reality.
To enter Quignard’s horizonless time-space is to embrace a rich vision in which the totality of human history and culture is placed disconcertingly on a single footing. In The Fount of Time we are able to glimpse—whether through obscure cultural detail or unusual anecdote—“another world beneath the world.”
So writes Pascal Quignard of his monumental book series, Last Kingdom. In the latest volume, The Fount of Time, he focuses on the paradoxically immediate presence in our lives of the deepest, most distant past. He explores this subject through a multitude of mediums: fragments of autobiography; curious folktales; literary snippets; historical anecdotes both classical and modern; ruminations on biology, archaeology, and linguistics. Using all of these forms, he confronts dimensions of human experience which, though customarily conveyed in legend, myth, and dreams, run somehow beneath the everyday world and yet are part of our most tangible reality.
To enter Quignard’s horizonless time-space is to embrace a rich vision in which the totality of human history and culture is placed disconcertingly on a single footing. In The Fount of Time we are able to glimpse—whether through obscure cultural detail or unusual anecdote—“another world beneath the world.”
Reviews
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 (The Lac de Garet)
Chapter 2 (Tea)
Chapter 3 (Dead Sea)
Chapter 4 Happiness
Chapter 5 (On Nur’s Handwriting)
Chapter 6 (A Calm Voice Dictates)
Chapter 7 The Past
Chapter 8 (Redcurrants)
Chapter 9 Le Havre
Chapter 10 Red
Chapter 11 (The Pivots of Time)
Chapter 12 (The Fountainhead)
Chapter 13 (A Vehement Inclination of God)
Chapter 14 (Silence in the Solid State)
Chapter 15 The Paradoxes of Kenko
Chapter 16 Invisible Earth
Chapter 17 (The List of Shadows)
Chapter 18 Montataire
Chapter 19 The Lists of Joy
Chapter 20 (Problèma)
Chapter 21 (Detachment)
Chapter 22 How Can The Past Become Jouissance?
Chapter 23 On Earth-Shattering Joy
Chapter 24 (The Gull)
Chapter 25 On the Non-orientedness of Time
Chapter 26 Evening
Chapter 27 Bergheim
Chapter 28 (The Old River)
Chapter 29 (The Ironed Handkerchief)
Chapter 30 (Flight)
Chapter 31 Wie aus der Ferne
Chapter 32 On the Little Orient
Chapter 33 The Second Joy List
Chapter 34 Rembrandt
Chapter 35 (Wine)
Chapter 36 France
Chapter 37 (Re-emerging)
Chapter 38 East of the Hoggar
Chapter 39 The Morning
Chapter 40 Paradise
Chapter 41 (The Beginning is Image)
Chapter 42 (The Insatiable Dawn)
Chapter 43 Treatise on White
Chapter 44 The Sonata of the Snow that fell in the Yonne département in early 2002.
Chapter 45 The Aorist
Chapter 46 On the Greek Word Aorista
Chapter 47 (Stars)
Chapter 48 The Son of Origin
Chapter 49 (Cäcilia)
Chapter 50 (Queen Theodelinda)
Chapter 51 (List of Occupations)
Chapter 52 (White Sexual Droplet)
Chapter 53 Ja-a-dis
Chapter 54 (Melammu)
Chapter 55 (Indifference)
Chapter 56 (The There)
Chapter 57 Veni, vidi, vici
Chapter 58 Old Hand of Maurepas
Chapter 59 (The Source)
Chapter 60 (Mallow)
Chapter 61 Sprick Proverbs
Chapter 62 (Dust)
Chapter 63 (Pompeii)
Chapter 64 (Patina)
Chapter 65 (Houei-Neng)
Chapter 66 (Mayflies)
Chapter 67 (The Worn Elbows of Sweaters)
Chapter 68 (Carrion-eating Fungi)
Chapter 69 Treatise on Xenocrates from Chalcedon
Chapter 70 Who Comes after the Wind
Chapter 71 (Wings of Dead Butterflies)
Chapter 72 The Timeless
Chapter 73 The Three Lists of Ghosts
Chapter 74 (The Timeless Descendant)
Chapter 75 Kingdom of a Child
Chapter 76 (Gaia)
Chapter 77 Luna vetus
Chapter 78 Afterbirth
Chapter 79 (Kingship of the Sexual)
Chapter 80 Principium et Initium
Chapter 81 (The Emperor Claudius’s Saying)
Chapter 82 Silence of Evening
Chapter 83 (Sounds of the Past)
Chapter 84 Ecstasy
Chapter 85 (The Rollers)
Chapter 86 Light of the Past
Chapter 87 On the Sound of the Past
Chapter 88 A Friend that goes back a Thousand Years
Chapter 89 Aeneas
Chapter 90 The Three Sounds
Chapter 91 The Two Sounds
Chapter 92 Silence
Chapter 93 Jan Van Eyck
Chapter 94 Tears
Chapter 95 The Mountain
Chapter 2 (Tea)
Chapter 3 (Dead Sea)
Chapter 4 Happiness
Chapter 5 (On Nur’s Handwriting)
Chapter 6 (A Calm Voice Dictates)
Chapter 7 The Past
Chapter 8 (Redcurrants)
Chapter 9 Le Havre
Chapter 10 Red
Chapter 11 (The Pivots of Time)
Chapter 12 (The Fountainhead)
Chapter 13 (A Vehement Inclination of God)
Chapter 14 (Silence in the Solid State)
Chapter 15 The Paradoxes of Kenko
Chapter 16 Invisible Earth
Chapter 17 (The List of Shadows)
Chapter 18 Montataire
Chapter 19 The Lists of Joy
Chapter 20 (Problèma)
Chapter 21 (Detachment)
Chapter 22 How Can The Past Become Jouissance?
Chapter 23 On Earth-Shattering Joy
Chapter 24 (The Gull)
Chapter 25 On the Non-orientedness of Time
Chapter 26 Evening
Chapter 27 Bergheim
Chapter 28 (The Old River)
Chapter 29 (The Ironed Handkerchief)
Chapter 30 (Flight)
Chapter 31 Wie aus der Ferne
Chapter 32 On the Little Orient
Chapter 33 The Second Joy List
Chapter 34 Rembrandt
Chapter 35 (Wine)
Chapter 36 France
Chapter 37 (Re-emerging)
Chapter 38 East of the Hoggar
Chapter 39 The Morning
Chapter 40 Paradise
Chapter 41 (The Beginning is Image)
Chapter 42 (The Insatiable Dawn)
Chapter 43 Treatise on White
Chapter 44 The Sonata of the Snow that fell in the Yonne département in early 2002.
Chapter 45 The Aorist
Chapter 46 On the Greek Word Aorista
Chapter 47 (Stars)
Chapter 48 The Son of Origin
Chapter 49 (Cäcilia)
Chapter 50 (Queen Theodelinda)
Chapter 51 (List of Occupations)
Chapter 52 (White Sexual Droplet)
Chapter 53 Ja-a-dis
Chapter 54 (Melammu)
Chapter 55 (Indifference)
Chapter 56 (The There)
Chapter 57 Veni, vidi, vici
Chapter 58 Old Hand of Maurepas
Chapter 59 (The Source)
Chapter 60 (Mallow)
Chapter 61 Sprick Proverbs
Chapter 62 (Dust)
Chapter 63 (Pompeii)
Chapter 64 (Patina)
Chapter 65 (Houei-Neng)
Chapter 66 (Mayflies)
Chapter 67 (The Worn Elbows of Sweaters)
Chapter 68 (Carrion-eating Fungi)
Chapter 69 Treatise on Xenocrates from Chalcedon
Chapter 70 Who Comes after the Wind
Chapter 71 (Wings of Dead Butterflies)
Chapter 72 The Timeless
Chapter 73 The Three Lists of Ghosts
Chapter 74 (The Timeless Descendant)
Chapter 75 Kingdom of a Child
Chapter 76 (Gaia)
Chapter 77 Luna vetus
Chapter 78 Afterbirth
Chapter 79 (Kingship of the Sexual)
Chapter 80 Principium et Initium
Chapter 81 (The Emperor Claudius’s Saying)
Chapter 82 Silence of Evening
Chapter 83 (Sounds of the Past)
Chapter 84 Ecstasy
Chapter 85 (The Rollers)
Chapter 86 Light of the Past
Chapter 87 On the Sound of the Past
Chapter 88 A Friend that goes back a Thousand Years
Chapter 89 Aeneas
Chapter 90 The Three Sounds
Chapter 91 The Two Sounds
Chapter 92 Silence
Chapter 93 Jan Van Eyck
Chapter 94 Tears
Chapter 95 The Mountain