{"product_id":"one-toss-of-the-dice-the-incredible-story-of-how-a-poem-made-us-modern-9780871406637","title":"One Toss of the Dice: The Incredible Story of How a Poem Made Us Modern","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt was, improbably, the forerunner of our digital age: a French poem about a shipwreck published in 1897 that, with its mind-bending possibilities of being read up and down, backward and forward, even sideways, launched modernism. Stéphane Mallarmé's \"One Toss of the Dice,\" a daring, twenty-page epic of ruin and recovery, provided an epochal \"tipping point,\" defining the spirit of the age and anticipating radical thinkers of the twentieth century, from Albert Einstein to T. S. Eliot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCelebrating its intrinsic influence on our culture, renowned scholar R. Howard Bloch masterfully decodes the poem still considered among the most enigmatic ever written. In Bloch's shimmering portrait of Belle Époque Paris, Mallarmé stands as the spiritual giant of the era, gathering around him every Tuesday a luminous cast of characters including Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Claude Monet, André Gide, Claude Debussy, Oscar Wilde, and even the future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau. A simple schoolteacher whose salons and prodigious literary talent won him the adoration of Paris's elite, Mallarmé achieved the reputation of France's greatest living poet. He was so beloved that mourners crowded along the Seine for his funeral in 1898, many refusing to depart until late into the night, leaving Auguste Renoir to ponder, \"How long will it take for nature to make another such a mind?\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver a century later, the allure of Mallarmé's linguistic feat continues to ignite the imaginations of the world's greatest thinkers. Featuring a new, authoritative translation of the French poem by J. D. McClatchy, \u003cem\u003eOne Toss of the Dice\u003c\/em\u003e reveals how a literary masterpiece launched the modernist movement, contributed to the rise of pop art, influenced modern Web design, and shaped the perceptual world we now inhabit. And as Alex Ross remarks in \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e, \"If you can crack [Mallarmé's] poems, it seems, you can crack the riddles of existence.\" In \u003cem\u003eOne Toss of the Dice\u003c\/em\u003e, Bloch finally, and brilliantly, dissects one of literary history's greatest mysteries to reveal how a poem made us modern.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Liveright Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/08\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780871406637\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 320\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.20d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/18\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/0001\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/15\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/15\/2016 pg. 84\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/15\/2016 pg. 11\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"R. Howard Bloch","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52715396563125,"sku":"9780871406637","price":23.76,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/one-toss-of-the-dice-the-incredible-story-of-how-a-poem-made-us-modern-9780871406637","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}