RUINS AND FRAGMENTS: TALES OF LOSS AND REDISCOVERY (HB)

What is it about ruins that is so alluring, so puzzling, that they can hold us in endless wonder over the half-erased story they tell? This elegant book explores the captivating hold these remains and broken pieces – from architecture to art and literature – have on us. Why are we suspicious of things that are too smooth, too continuous? What makes us feel, when we look at a fragment, that its very incompletion has a kind of meaning in itself? Looking at ancient fragments, Robert Harbison probes the ways we have recovered, restored and exhibited them.