{"product_id":"the-powers-of-the-word-selected-essays-and-notes-19271943","title":"The Powers of the Word: Selected Essays and Notes 1927-1943","description":"Since his death in 1944  Rene Daumal has come to be recognized as one of the original minds of the twentieth century French letters. Poet  essayist  philosopher and translator  Sanscrit scholar and pupil of Gurdjieff  Daumal was a founder of the Grand Jeu group. He was iconoclastic and electic  able to embrace simultaneously Alfred Jarrys Pataphysics and Hindu teachings. Daumals two major works in English translation  Mount Analogue and A Night of Serious Drinking  have long been classics in this country; but until now  readers have not had acess to the full range of his thought. The Powers of the Word spans a lifetime of essays and notes-many here translated for the first time-from the earliest incitements to drug use and revolt; through Daumals unique readings of literary works; to his more mature  but no less ardent  meditations. \"There are considerable portions of Ren Daumals thinking that leave one with the sensation of watching a man climb out of sight on a steep slope.... Climbing was his vocation and his avocation  and he simply kept on going when others turned back.... In all his writing  the world of concrete objects carries its full common sense of pleasure and hardship  of beauty and blight. At the same time his philosophical turn of mind involves him in a real struggle of ideas  one usually carried on by closed minds and obscured by fuzzy words.... (His is) a startlingly clear voice in the din.\" Roger Shattuck Rene Daumal (1908-1944) was a French spiritual writer and poet. He is well-known for his posthumously published novel Mount Analogue and for being an outspoken practitioner of pataphysics.","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44666230145077,"sku":"ByrdShop_0872862593","price":225.41,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/ByrdShop_0872862593_cf250dd3-818f-4984-a23c-2f2b2d8394bf.jpg?v=1768242681","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-powers-of-the-word-selected-essays-and-notes-19271943","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}