Overview

"For nearly three thousand years, King Sisyphus of Corinth has been one of the most compelling characters in world mythology. The iconic image of Sisyphus putting his shoulder to the boulder and pushing it to the summit of a mountain in the Underworld is recognizable the world over. To many poets and philosophers, from Homer and Aeschylus to Lucille Clifton and Albert Camus, the rebel hero has been a powerful symbol for hard-earned wisdom and the struggle to transcend suffering, while more skeptical commentators have interpreted Sisyphus' defiance of the gods as futile and doomed. In this mythopoetic novel, Phil Cousineau reimagines Sisyphus as telling his own tale through notebooks he kept while enduring his notorious punishment, which include surprising revelations about the self-sacrifice he made for his fellow Corinthians, his bold fight against the injustice of the gods, and the unbounded love for his wife and sons that earned him a second chance at life. The Lost Notebooks of Sisyphus is a timeless allegory that helps us come to terms with our own daily struggles and shines new light on Camus' existential conclusion that, ""We must imagine Sisyphus as happy."" I am Sisyphus, King of Corinth, great-great-grandson of Prometheus, great-grandson of Deucalion and Pyrrha, grandson of Hellen and Orseis, son of Aeolus and Enarate, husband of Merope, father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Almus, and Thersander, and grandfather of Bellerophon, slayer of the Chimera. I am a champion of navigators, sailors, athletes, merchants, poets, and playwrights, and an enemy of tyrants, despots, bullies, ruffians, and demagogues. I honor the gods and goddesses by building splendid temples, holy shrines, and sacrificial altars worthy of their glory. Many men deep am I, as my mentor, the deep-browed, long- bearded, wise-counseling Alexandros of Milos described me. What I am not is a scoundrel, as scandalmongers have impugned across the centuries while exonerating the cruel gods who condemned me."

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9780962654824

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Reviews

Phil Cousineau is a devoted voyageur and writer. It has been a pleasure to read his great adventure about Sisyphus. I am happy to spend time with his always amazing work. - Willis Barnstone, author of The Ecstatic Poets: Sappho to Cavafy, and Borges and Me A glorious saga. A tale for the ages told with uncommon depth, poetry and grace. To understand the myth of Sisyphus is to know that the long-haul matters and that there is a kind of nobility in our suffering and a deeper meaning in our perseverance. We need this book to correct the shallow misconceptions about Sisyphus and initiate us into in the mysteries of this archetypal story. - Valerie Andrews, editor and publisher of Reinventing Home I find these Sisyphean journals fascinating. It is utterly original in its approach to this myth. - Geoffrey Ashe MBE, FRSL, author of The Discovery of King Arthur and Mythology of the British Isles Greek scholars should give the most poignant and important reviews of The Lost Notebooks of Sisyphus. It's such a beautiful extension of the Great Myth. It's like the New Testament of Sisyphus, how it deftly connects with its history and creates a new myth for our times. Sisyphus' knowledge past and future gives him a perspective of life we can only ever begin to grasp and is still in the first person. It's very cool. He has a Poe-like telltale heart urgency to explain himself and his situation, while that situation is vast and has everything to do with universal struggle. It's all there, like a classic tale that had to be written, that perhaps was written long ago, 'Lost', and now found. - R.B. Morris, author of The Mockingbird Poems, and songwriter of That's How Every Empire Falls What a treat this novel is. I thoroughly enjoyed the metaphors, the laying in of many Greek words and phrases, the encyclopedic journey through the ancient Greek gods and goddesses, which adds up to a fine narrative. I cannot help but like Sisyphus. He is honest, authentic, and truly a searcher....Reading it has stirred these questions: What have you sacrificed to become who you are? What has been your biggest boulder and how as it made you any bolder in your life? Can we truly be our authentic selves without metabolizing our despairs and defeats? I have learned to like Sisyphus as a character. - Dennis Slattery, author and professor of mythological and literature studies, Pacifica Institute, and The Way of Myth: Stories' Subtle Wisdom Absolutely stunning. I'm reading it slowly, savoring every page. It's a masterpiece. Phil Cousineau breathes new life into an ancient myth, seen now through the eyes of Sisyphus, and provides an entirely new interpretation of too often misunderstood parable. The writing is glorious, the imagery is breathtaking, and the tale resonates with profound psychological insight into man's ethical dilemmas throughout the ages. The Lost Notebooks of Sisyphus is an instant Classic in its own right. -Terry Tarnoff, author of The Bone Man of Benares and The Thousand Year Journey of Tobias Parker The Lost Notebooks of Sisyphus is brilliant, simply, beautifully brilliant. He reminds us of our responsibility to awe. - James Norwood Pratt, author of The Tea Lover's Treasury Phil Cousineau's literary shoulders rival the boulder-busting shoulders of his hero, Sisyphus. Both lift us above those infernal time killers, passivity and procrastination, and warn of that fate worse than death-the suffering of an unlived life. - Kathy Makeyev, PhD, Mythological Studies, Pacifica Institute

Author Information

PHIL COUSINEAU is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, mythographer, and storyteller. He has published over 40 books, earned 30 documentary screenwriting credits, and worked with many of the leading mythologists of our time, including Joseph Campbell and Alexander Eliot. For the last thirty years, he has led small group travel programs to Greece, lectured on mythology in the modern world, and been interviewed about myth for the Smithsonian Channel, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, LucasFilm, and Pixar Studios. His books include The Hero's Journey, Once and Future Myths, and The Art of Pilgrimage. He lives in San Francisco, California.

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