Description
Book SynopsisRichard Klein tells the millennia-spanning history of the city of Arles, France, from the perspective of the limestone eminence upon which it sits, showing how the city has always had a spirit that contested the reactionary conservative forces of the Church and nobility that governed it for fifteen centuries.
Trade Review“In
The Rock of Arles, Richard Klein revels in the role of an immensely imaginative ghostwriter. His fearlessly spirited prose records the views of the Rock—a grand personification that mixes semi-omniscience with interrogation and speculation—on an Arles that rivals Rome as the emblematic City of Humanity. The daringly revelatory result is a mock history—at times extravagantly and hilariously fictionalized yet at moments urgently compelling—of the Western world.” -- Philip Lewis, Professor Emeritus of French Literature, Cornell University
“
The Rock of Arles is an urban history we didn’t know we needed and a history we wouldn’t have known at all except through its opinionated and often very funny orographic narrator. We take seriously what the Rock tells us about the past and our possible future not despite but because of its charmingly brazen fictiveness. This delightful book thwarts expectations; its queer history is of the moment and its form entirely sui generis . . . at least until other rocks decide to follow the Rock’s example.” -- Andrew Parker, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Rutgers University
"An engaging, enjoyable read. A brief but pithy, informative piece of work, representing a unique approach to history writing." * Kirkus Reviews *
Table of ContentsAuthor's Note ix
Prologue xi
I. Urbs Dupleix 1
II. Quid Obstat Fit in Via 19
III. Colonia Julia Paterna Arelate 31
IV. Venus Genetrix 45
V. Urbs Genesii 54
VI. Peri Tuché 70
VII. Felix Carcar 86
VIII. A Worthy Woman 104
IX. A Republic of Equals 121
Acknowledgments 145
Notes 149
Bibliography 153
