A wonderfully witty, erudite, and insightful book about the way "things fall apart" -- about the inevitable ruin of everything from bodies and works of art to ideals and whole societies In The Way of All Flesh Midas Dekkers argues that things are at their most beautiful when they decay, provided they are given the chance. Old buildings are usually pulled down or restored. Aging people desperately try to act and look young, becuase novelty, youth and beauty are equated in our minds with what is desirable. Only mankind is bothered by the realization that "life is a way of dying slowly." By ignoring or evading the lure of decay, which has its own attractions, are we simply trying to escape from the truth? With the idiosycratic erudition of the european intellectual -- Roberto Calasso and Umberto Eco come to mind -- Dekkers stresses that our aversion to decay and mortality makes our lives shallow. This is the meditative essay as written by Fellini; Dekkers that ancient Rome's days of decline were its finest, and The Way of All Flesh is a profound and entertaining meditation on what it means to outlive one's usefulness, when the wheel of fortune has gone full circle.

The Way of All Flesh: The Romance of Ruins

Literature & Fiction

Midas Dekkers

History & Criticism

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Youth is the most sought-after elixir. As old age takes its toll people try to resist, anything is tried to keep decay and death at bay. Midas Dekkers argues that humans should accept decay in a similar manner to the changes of the seasons and the natural break-down process in plants. Decline is the clock by which we tell how far we have travelled; dissolution, not survival, is the norm; and old age is the fulfilment not the failure of our advancing years. Dekkers tries to challenge our most cherished beliefs in order to make us look at life with new eyes.

The Way of All Flesh : A Celebration of Decay

Harvill/Panther

Lichamelijke oefening

Contact

Poes: verhalen over de poes

Erik Of Het Klein Insectenboek

Godfried Jan Arnold Bomans

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Books by Midas Dekkers