Searching for Oedipus - by Kenneth Glazer (Paperback)

About the Book

In Searching for Oedipus, attorney Ken Glazer recounts his decades-long quest to answer the Riddle of Oedipus: why Oedipus Rex, after 2,500 years, still wields such enormous power. Along the way he slices through the scholarly debate, laying bare the many ways this ancient mas...

Book Synopsis

Aristotle considered it to be the model on which all other tragedies should be based. Freud viewed it as the key to unlocking the subconscious. Countless others have agreed with D.H. Lawrence's assessment that it is "the finest drama of all time." It is Oedipus Rex, one of the most celebrated--and disputed--works in all of Western literature. For centuries, classicists, psychologists, philosophers and many others have tried to solve the "Riddle of Oedipus," the age-old puzzle of what Sophocles's masterpiece means and why it is so singularly mesmerizing.
In Searching for Oedipus, Kenneth Glazer offers a fresh and personal way of looking at Oedipus Rex by recounting what Oedipus Rex has meant to him at different points in his life and how, gradually over many years, he came to answer this ancient riddle for himself.

Along the way, Searching for Oedipus shows just how deeply Oedipus Rex is embedded in our cultural DNA and how strongly its influence continues to be felt. Both a valuable resource for scholars and a riveting, accessible analysis for the general reader, Searching for Oedipus brings to life a work of art that, even after 2,500 years, still retains the power to shock and inspire.

Review Quotes

"Glazer takes each episode of the play in sequence and provides his reflections on it. He offers the general reader a good over-view of the plot, noteworthy scholarhship about the play and theories about the myth of Oepipus. Glazer helpfully summarizes the issues that have occasioned scholarly debate, with charts of both sides of the arguments, at the end of the book." --The Classical Journal

"Written in a jaunty, down-to-earth style, ballasted by a solid grounding in the vast store of accumulated wisdom and scholarly commentary inspired by Sophocles' tragedy, Kenneth Glazer's Searching for Oedipus is at once the culmination of one man's lifelong quest to discover for himself the meanings of the classic story of the 'circular detective' and a valuable starting point for future investigators setting out on their own personal and intellectual journeys in Oedipus's swollen footsteps." --Peter L. Rudnytsky, University of Florida and Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, author of Freud and Oedipus

"In this stunningly broad and creative book about the most brilliant and enigmatic Greek drama, Ken Glazer, a practicing lawyer, examines Oedipus the King from every angle--as a "circular detective" story, a study of self-ignorance and the power of the past, and an inquiry into the nature of fate, heroism, ethical choice, and tragedy itself. Intriguing parallels illuminate his intellectual journey, from Woody Allen, Nietzsche and Socrates to Hamlet, Harry Potter, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Part autobiography, part masterful summation of centuries of scholarship and reception, this engagingly written quest is for anybody who ever wondered why the Oedipus story fascinates us, proving the truth of Glazer's observation: Sophocles play is too great to be left to specialists alone." --Richard Martin, Anthony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor in Classics, Stanford University

"Though a professor of German literature, I began every one of my classes by assigning Oedipus Rex, because in many respects it is the bedrock work of Western literature. In Searching for Oedipus, Ken Glazer has done us all a favor by showing how and why Sophocles's masterpiece still matters 2500 years later. And Glazer does so in an appealingly personal way, describing his own evolving attempt to answer the Riddle of Oedipus--an evolution that in interesting ways parallels Oedipus's own riddle-solving journey. At the same time, he lays before us the spread of centuries of interpreters, including the distorting influence of Freud. A wonderful and fulfilling book." --G. Ronald Murphy, Georgetown University, author of Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North and The Owl, The Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales

"The classics have always been real and relevant, but they haven't always been in the front of people's minds. In Searching for Oedipus, Kenneth Glazer has performed the great service of showing, once more, how a really first-rate work from classical Athens still speaks to modern life. Glazer takes as his text the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, which was a personal favorite ever since his school years. He reviews how this play prodded and guided his growing understanding of the world. On first reading it showed the cleverness of Oedipus as he slowly figured out the mystery of his parentage (he had unwittingly killed his father and married his mother); on later readings it was seen to explore the nature of tragedy and unexpected turns of fortune; and most recently it has resonated for its deeply adult lessons about the importance of facing events with kindness and fortitude. Through all of these evolutions, both Sophocles and Glazer show us the continuing importance of the classic maxim, carved into the temple at Delphi, 'Know thyself.'" --Neil Averitt, author of The Single Gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Consolidated into a Single Narrative

Glazer takes each episode of the play in sequence and provides his reflections on it. He offers the general reader a good over-view of the plot, noteworthy scholarhship about the play and theories about the myth of Oepipus. Glazer helpfully summarizes the issues that have occasioned scholarly debate, with charts of both sides of the arguments, at the end of the book.

Written in a jaunty, down-to-earth style, ballasted by a solid grounding in the vast store of accumulated wisdom and scholarly commentary inspired by Sophocles' tragedy, Kenneth Glazer's Searching for Oedipus is at once the culmination of one man's lifelong quest to discover for himself the meanings of the classic story of the 'circular detective' and a valuable starting point for future investigators setting out on their own personal and intellectual journeys in Oedipus's swollen footsteps.

In this stunningly broad and creative book about the most brilliant and enigmatic Greek drama, Ken Glazer, a practicing lawyer, examines Oedipus the King from every angle--as a "circular detective" story, a study of self-ignorance and the power of the past, and an inquiry into the nature of fate, heroism, ethical choice, and tragedy itself. Intriguing parallels illuminate his intellectual journey, from Woody Allen, Nietzsche and Socrates to Hamlet, Harry Potter, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Part autobiography, part masterful summation of centuries of scholarship and reception, this engagingly written quest is for anybody who ever wondered why the Oedipus story fascinates us, proving the truth of Glazer's observation: Sophocles play is too great to be left to specialists alone.

The classics have always been real and relevant, but they haven't always been in the front of people's minds. In Searching for Oedipus, Kenneth Glazer has performed the great service of showing, once more, how a really first-rate work from classical Athens still speaks to modern life. Glazer takes as his text the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, which was a personal favorite ever since his school years. He reviews how this play prodded and guided his growing understanding of the world. On first reading it showed the cleverness of Oedipus as he slowly figured out the mystery of his parentage (he had unwittingly killed his father and married his mother); on later readings it was seen to explore the nature of tragedy and unexpected turns of fortune; and most recently it has resonated for its deeply adult lessons about the importance of facing events with kindness and fortitude. Through all of these evolutions, both Sophocles and Glazer show us the continuing importance of the classic maxim, carved into the temple at Delphi, 'Know thyself.'

Though a professor of German literature, I began every one of my classes by assigning Oedipus Rex, because in many respects it is the bedrock work of Western literature. In Searching for Oedipus, Ken Glazer has done us all a favor by showing how and why Sophocles's masterpiece still matters 2500 years later. And Glazer does so in an appealingly personal way, describing his own evolving attempt to answer the Riddle of Oedipus--an evolution that in interesting ways parallels Oedipus's own riddle-solving journey. At the same time, he lays before us the spread of centuries of interpreters, including the distorting influence of Freud. A wonderful and fulfilling book.

About the Author

Kenneth Glazer has practiced law for many years after graduating from UC Berkeley, where he studied history and philosophy, and Stanford University Law School.