![]() Ongoing excavations at the site of Velia throw some light on Parmenides, born there in 501, and his successor Zeno who was a decade younger. ![]() In the sixth century BCE the Phocaeans sailed to Italy and founded the city of Elea, now called Velia. Phocaea was a Greek city on the coast of Anatolia. Parmenides’ insights are interesting enough on their own. I think in the case of this book it’s a bit of a distraction – it points back at the rational mind which the prose is working to bypass. This is a guiding theme for Kingsley and an important point. The story challenges scholastic traditions which center civilization on Athens. Through his stylistic choices it seems this is also what Kingsley means his own book to do. Kingsley describes the poem’s style as incantory, invoking a trance state. It focuses on Parmenides and his visionary poem “On Nature”. It’s a conversational narrative, parceling out information in small bits and retracing ideas. ![]() He writes in a strikingly simplistic style. It’s a scholarly work making a serious point but Kingsley sweeps away the academic apparatus and banishes notes to the end of the book. Peter Kingsley’s book In the Dark Places of Wisdom is a story. ![]()
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