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Agamben at his most philological. Readings of the Divine Comedy and arcane troubadour poetry in which the poetry itself is at stake. Like a block of pitch dark chocolate: dense but rich.

I love this book to pieces already. It's not just the ideas - which are great - or the erudition - which is vast - but it's sensuality: for the first time in a while, I'm not just reading to churn through concepts, but to appreciate the very telling of the narrative in the first place. There's a lightness here that recalls Agamben without the apocalypticism - and a bunch more Freud and Nietzsche in it's place.

Even before I begin I just wanna note just how gorgeous this book is, printing-wise. I'm a sucker for large(r than usual) format books in general, but coupled with the ample illustrated plates (including the coloured inserts in the middle), this is a thing of beauty.

This book is trying a little bit too hard to be cutesy with its writing, and its a little bit scattershot for my liking, but hopefully it leads somewhere eventually. Honestly a little disappointed right now.

I started reading this along with a reader's guide, but I've all but given up on the guide: there's little need for it - this book is magnificent and readable all on it's own. I say this having annotated literally every paragraph I've read so far.

Deleuze does in 3 pages what it takes entire essays to flesh out, and basically does this for the whole book. Its a monstrosity of philosophical virtuosity.

Had to re-start this cause I was 50 pages in and realized I hadn't absorbed a thing :<