The Night in Gethsemane: On Solitude and Betrayal

Description

As the Gospels tell us, after the Last Supper Jesus retreats to a small field just outside the city of Jerusalem: Gethsemane, the olive grove. His prayers are interrupted when Judas arrives with a group of armed men, and kisses him. The kiss, given to point Jesus out to the guards, has become a powerful symbol of the wrenching experience of betrayal, and abandonment. Betrayed by his disciples, even by Peter, the most faithful of them all, Jesus is forsaken. His sin, to have drawn God closer to man. In The Night in Gethsemane, Massimo Recalcati, one of Italy's highest regarded psychoanalysts, traces the relationship between biblical text and psychoanalytical theory, revealing human life in all its fragility and its agony.

Massimo Recalcati is a psychoanalyst and author who teaches at the universities of Pavia and Verona. Ann Goldstein is one of the most accomplished translators from the Italian working today. Best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's oeuvre, she has also translated novels by Primo Levi, Pierpaolo Pasolini, Alessandro Baricco and other classic and contemporary Italian writers.

"An elegant, provocative meditation on one of the Gospels' most emotionally complex moments." * Kirkus Reviews * "A brilliant, stirring analysis." * La Stampa * "A book that reads in less than two hours but stays with you forever." * Il Foglio * "Lively and sharp . . . an invitation to look positively at the loneliness of human experience." * Lettera *