Cultures of all epochs have consulted oracles in times of need. This fascinating exploration of the enduring popularity of oracles examines how they are interpreted and why. Taking examples from literature and history, from the oracles at Delphi to those in
Macbeth, and further still to the works of Kafka and Bob Dylan, and even in the film
The Matrix, Wood combines storytelling and commentary to provide a lively account of humanitys persistent faith in signs, which continues to exert an important influence on the course of civilization.
Michael Wood is the Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University. He is the author of several previous books, including The Magician's Doubts, an acclaimed analysis of Nabokov; America in the Movies; and a study of the Luis Buñuel film Belle de Jour.
For thousands of years, in hundreds of different cultures, individuals have consulted oracles in times of need. In this compelling exploration of the fascinating history and enduring popularity of oracles, scholar and critic Michael Wood examines how we interpret them and why.
The inherent ambiguity of many oracular pronouncements and the ingenuity and tendentiousness of their readings form the basis for Wood's brilliant analyses of oracles, both real and imagined. Using examples drawn from actual oracles that existed at Delphi, Dodona, and elsewhere, and from fictionalbut influentialoracles in literature from Oedipus to Macbeth, Wood combines storytelling and commentary to provide an entertaining and concise account of humanity's persistent faith in signs. He also looks at later instances of oracles, arguing that consultations have evolved in many ways over the years, and that echoes and survivals of old practices in modern literature and popular culturein the works of Kafka and Proust and in the films The Matrix and Minority Report, as well as in astrology columnscontinue to exert an important influence over human civilization.
Inspired, engaging, and remarkably revealing, The Road to Delphi shows an ancient art at work in many times and places, and invites us to think again about the ways in which we long for the certainties we know we can't have.
"Wood, who teaches English at Princeton, is not a true believerhe is an amiable skeptic with a soft spot for the oracular utterances of astrologers. But in The Road to Delphi, his erudite romp through the history of oracles, from the ancients to the soothsaying economists and physicians of our own time, Wood finds a beautifully clear picture of the complex mechanics of mythmaking and a helpful explication of the tangle of human desire and interpretation."Laura Ciolkowski, The New York Times
"The Road to Delphi is a refreshingly original and sometimes startling rereading of oracles, from ancient ambiguities on through Shakespeare to our current perplexities of medicine and terrorism. For Wood, the gods keep returning, but only to confound us."Harold Bloom
"Subtle and wide-ranging . . . Sheds light on a noteworthy aspect of human nature, the overwhelming tendency of human beings to hear what we hope for rather than fear. You don't have to believe in oracles to find them interesting."Los Angeles Times
"Wood, who teaches English at Princeton, is not a true believerhe is an amiable skeptic with a soft spot for the oracular utterances of astrologers. But in The Road to Delphi, his erudite romp through the history of oracles, from the ancients to the soothsaying economists and physicians of our own time, Wood finds a beautifully clear picture of the complex mechanics of mythmaking and a helpful explication of the tangle of human desire and interpretation."Laura Ciolkowski, The New York Times
"If Wood didn't write with such clarity and modest good sense, one might regard his range as a bit show-offy. As it is, The Road to Delphi seems elegantly European, the sort of essay a Roland Barthes might turn out or a Roberto Calasso."Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
"If not an oracular pronouncement, then a source of terrific and myriad pleasures. Michael Wood's The Road to Delphi is all that and then some."James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street
"[A] subtle and wide-ranging consideration of oracles and the oracular mode."Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times
"This engaging and wide-ranging reflection on knowing the future deserves praise. We would expect nothing less than [such] a distinguished accomplishment from Wood . . . Anthropology, philosophy, religion, classical mythology, English literature: various disciplines enter and exit the stage on which Wood orchestrates a thoroughly interesting analysis of how we interpret oracles and why. The chapter on medicine and probability deserves special praise, enlarging as it does Wood's field of vision to bioethics and mathematics."John Portman, The Virginia Quarterly Review
"The oracle's enduring presence in literature, film, and popular culture is assessed by Wood as an historical and cultural phenomenon. There's a little something for everyone here. The author provides learned, sometimes challenging discussions of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Milton; he alludes to The Matrix, Bob Dylan, W. C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, films both popular (Minority Report) and otherwise (Throne of Blood); he offers revisionist and even generous considerations of the daily horoscope, Nostradamus, and your primary-care physician. Wood begins by wondering why the idea of oracles has lingered in so many cultures since its origins inas nearly as he can tellGreece in the eighth century BC. He considers the centrality of the notion of gods in the oracular tradition [and] explains how the oracles worked: communication with a god, then a generally ambiguous reply or prediction or warning. Wood distinguishes carefully among the various sorts of predicting entities and their intermediaries, giving a particularly interesting analysis of sibyls, and a lovely riff on the sound of sibylline. Examining Cassandra, best known of all sibyls, he chronicles the cursed princess's appearances in myths and in Christa Wolf's 1984 novel, Cassandra. The author wonders (with Wittgenstein, whom he considers at length) about certainty, which he concludes has both 'appalling attractions and alluring dangers.' Wood sees astrology as a harmless, playful pastime for people who don't bother to ask about the process p0astrologers use to arrive at their generally genial pronouncements. And he tells a couple of brief, wrenching personal medical stories, one about a brother-in-law who died, another about his own son, who lived. Sometimes erudite, sometimes esoteric, always unpredictable."Kirkus Review
"Wood assesses the history of oracles in literature, drama, film, myth, and popular culture in this thorough examination of God's messengers. Plato, Shakespeare, Mann, Tolstoy, Freud, and Kafka are just a few of the authors whose oracular references Wood explicates. He spends a great deal of time discussing Oedipus, the Bible, the Greek heroine Cassandra, and the movie The Matrix, arguing that oracles play on our hopes and fears. Are the prophecies of oracles always right? Did oracles disappear with the birth of Christ? Why do oracles sometimes speak in riddles or use ambiguous language? Wood answers these questions with sweeping coverage across various cultures, religions, and time periods."Jaime Anderson, City of Henrico Public Library, Richmond, Virginia, Library Journal