Italo Calvino

[Alexander III]

I wanted to start a thread on Italo Calvino, as in my opinion he one of the greatest novelist of the 20th century, and the greatest novelist of the post WWII era. What I most love about his works is that he is a writer who does not merely continue literary tradition, recreating cliche, he is a writer of vision who did what had not been done. His works are original, which is the greatest merit of any art. His prose is beautiful and most of his works feel more like epics in free verse than prose.

Personally my favorite book of his is Invisible Cities, though I also love the Our Ancestors Trilogy.

So anyone here have any thoughts on the guys ?

Anyone else this he may just be the greatest western novelist of the 20th century ? (I say western as I have read literally no eastern novels written in the 21st century)

[JCamilo]

I like him, but he is more a writer of short stories than anything else.

[Virgil]

Oh i love Calvino. I haven't read all his work, but of the ones I've read The Baron in the Trees is my foavorite. I love that one. :)

[mayneverhave]

I actually just finished If on a winter's night a traveler (like 20 minutes ago), and found it fascinating. I was trying to think of who his writing style reminded me of and the only person I could think of was Borges.

[stlukesguild]

Oh! Calvino is certainly one of my absolute favorites. I agree that there is something in his works that is akin to J.L. Borges (another favorite). They are both clearly within the Post-Modernist tradition that owes much to writers such as Kafka, Lawrence Sterne, the Arabian Nights, etc... They are both masterful weavers of fiction... storytellers who challenge our notions of what fiction is. Calvino strikes me as the more magical. Invisible Cities is one of my absolute favorite books... but I also loved The Baron in the Trees (which I read in bed to my wife... who also loved it), The Castle of Crossed Destinies, and Cosmicomics. I have also read a good portion of his Italian Folktales. Because of copyright issues the complete Cosmicomics has never been available in the US. The volume I read some years back contained a mere 153 pages... while the Complete Cosmicomics...

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4140/4896529880_9693c51142.jpg

...which I have just ordered from Amazon.com and await anxiously contains 432 pages. To think that I have been denied due to the stupidity of some idiot lawyers and publishers... surely there must be a new circle added to Dante's Inferno!:flare:

[stlukesguild]

I like him, but he is more a writer of short stories than anything else.

The same might be said of Borges:ciappa:

Like Borges he has also written some marvelous essays and literary criticism.

[Wilde woman]

I enjoy Calvino as well, and just started his novel If on a Winter's a Night a traveler. This will be my first novel by him, since I've only read his short stories. I think he's a brilliant fabulist.

[BrunoSchulz]

Weeel...I have all of Calvino's work that has been translated into English.

I agree he is certainly one of the great prose stylists of 20th Century literature.

Amongst his greatest works are If On A Winter's Night A Traveller and Invisible Cities.

That cosmicomics collection of which I have a lovely HB edn. is quite superb.

Not sure if he can claim to be the greatest as that's always going to be a rather tough call. Certainly a master storyteller, no doubt about that.

[BrunoSchulz]

Whilst I do not wish to derail this thread too far off-topic I can suggest some other Italian fabulists who are also very good, some of whom were mentors and/or influences on Calvino.

I'll include in that list Gesualdo Bufalino, the great Sicilian writer and whose work is available in the excellent Harvil classic imprint, Cesar Pavese who was a major influence on Calvino and a mentor of Calvino in Tommaso Landolfi, whose 2 story collections are well worth a look. Also we can't forget the obvious influence that Dante Alighieri will have had on all of these authors and of course Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's exquisite The Leopard and of course Umberto Eco's The Island of The Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and Foucault's Pendulum.

[JCamilo]

I like him, but he is more a writer of short stories than anything else.

The same might be said of Borges:ciappa:

Like Borges he has also written some marvelous essays and literary criticism.

I mean in the sense of calling him a novelist. He have also traveling diaries and such.
I know a critic once said Calvino was Borges in a bad day (and I would say, Borges in a bad day, is a compliment) but I would say the similarity are superficial, more even due to Calvino admiration to Borges. (His Six proposals for a new millenium, the texts of the conference he was giving when died is basically a proposal to write like Borges). I would say they have similar themes (the reading, literature, etc) blut the style is different. Calvino loved experiences to build up a theme (Scientific theories, Cities, first chapters of a book, etc), Borges was more traditional in his short stories. Calvino also make me think of fabulists, not just italians, but spanish and french, specially those from after medieval times and before romantiscism (Marcovaldo is more like a Candide, there is some feeling of Persian Letters in Calvino, Bocaccio, Cyranno) while Borges was more a XIX century man.

[AbOvo]

I actually just finished If on a winter's night a traveler (like 20 minutes ago), and found it fascinating. I was trying to think of who his writing style reminded me of and the only person I could think of was Borges.

I could see this, yet as I read Calvino, his prose reminded me of Sterne or Fielding as opposed to Borges. I've read the popular novels and short stories of Calvino, I'm certainly looking forward to reading his whole oeuvre!

[Heteronym]

I've read so much by Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees, The Nonexistent Knight, The Cloven Viscount, The Watcher & other storie, Marcovaldo, Cosmicomics, T Zero, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Mr. Palomar, Invisible Cities, Under the Jaguar Sun, Why Read the Classics?, Numbers in the Dark & other stories, The Uses of Literature...

... and I dislike most of it. Excepting The Baron in the Trees (a beautiful, magical novel), Why Read the Classics? (very intelligent and tender essay about literature), and a few short-stories, I don't care much about Italo Calvino. He has an incredible imagination, but the execution often bores me. These magical ideas, that in the hands of Borges or Dino Buzzati would pulsate with life and excitement, in Calvino's turn stale quickly and have me wishing for the end to come.

[Alexander III]

I've read so much by Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees, The Nonexistent Knight, The Cloven Viscount, The Watcher & other storie, Marcovaldo, Cosmicomics, T Zero, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Mr. Palomar, Invisible Cities, Under the Jaguar Sun, Why Read the Classics?, Numbers in the Dark & other stories, The Uses of Literature...

... and I dislike most of it. Excepting The Baron in the Trees (a beautiful, magical novel), Why Read the Classics? (very intelligent and tender essay about literature), and a few short-stories, I don't care much about Italo Calvino. He has an incredible imagination, but the execution often bores me. These magical ideas, that in the hands of Borges or Dino Buzzati would pulsate with life and excitement, in Calvino's turn stale quickly and have me wishing for the end to come.

Possibly that is more the translations fault than Calvino's, in the original Italian I find his prose beautiful.

[stlukesguild]

I've read so much by Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees, The Nonexistent Knight, The Cloven Viscount, The Watcher & other storie, Marcovaldo, Cosmicomics, T Zero, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Mr. Palomar, Invisible Cities, Under the Jaguar Sun, Why Read the Classics?, Numbers in the Dark & other stories, The Uses of Literature...

... and I dislike most of it. Excepting The Baron in the Trees (a beautiful, magical novel), Why Read the Classics? (very intelligent and tender essay about literature), and a few short-stories, I don't care much about Italo Calvino. He has an incredible imagination, but the execution often bores me. These magical ideas, that in the hands of Borges or Dino Buzzati would pulsate with life and excitement, in Calvino's turn stale quickly and have me wishing for the end to come.

I have read a great deal of Calvino (in English translation) and find his work to be absolutely marvelous. Is it as good as Borges? Perhaps not... but then I am a Borges convert so I would be the last one able to offer anything approaching an objective opinion. Nevertheless, Calvino is quite different stylistically... he is more poetic... in the manner of all great fabulists... but equally crystalline... the absolute reverse of my other favorite 20th century prose stylist, Proust.

[Virgil]

I have read a great deal of Calvino (in English translation) and find his work to be absolutely marvelous.

The english translations are usually by William Weaver who is an icredible translator and writer in his own right. English readers of Calvino are spoiled.

[JCamilo]

Borges and Calvino is another world. Calvino alone, stands by himself.

[mal4mac]

I'm reading Cosmicomics at the moment. Why have I taken so long to read it? It just might be the most joyful reading experience of my life.

[stlukesguild]

My edition of the Complete Cosmicomics just arrived and I am once again reading this marvelous book. It may just rival Invisible Cities which is one of my absolute favorite books.

[Heteronym]

Possibly that is more the translations fault than Calvino's, in the original Italian I find his prose beautiful.

No, it's not the translations. It's hard to explain it, but I think Calvino just beats around the bush instead of telling a proper story most of the time. It's like he dismantles and analyses and rebuilds what he's writing at the same time he's writing it. This is more obvious in works like The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Invisible Cities and Mr. Palomar, but I see traces of it in most of his work. I understand if On a Winter's Night a Traveler is the same, self-conscious and full of false starts.

Also, unlike Borges, Calvino has no talent for writing about non-humans. Borges could make a short-story about a library interesting, but Calvino's incursions into stories without characters, just ideas, tend to feel didactic instead of playful, like Borges'.

Dino Buzzati, his contemporary, is more conservative in style but far more enjoyable and possesses a greater imagination.

[stlukesguild]

Nonsense. I am a sworn Borges fanatic and have read (repeatedly) nearly everything he's written... but I will be the first to admit that he has no ability (or interest) in creating characters. I certainly can't think of a single character in his entire oeuvre that rivals Calvino's incorrigible old Qfwfq. Neither do I agree that Borges is more playful. Calvino has an infinitely lighter and more playful touch. Borges plays... but there is more often than not something deadly serious at the heart of his play. Calvino and Borges are both brilliant story-tellers and infinitely inventive... challenging the accepted notions of literary form and genre. I don't find that either writer comes across at all as didactic.

[JCamilo]

Borges is ironical, while Calvino is comical.
As creation of characters, Borges created one that is amazing, which is himself and used it a hundred times on his life. Calvino had that capacity of popular comedy to bring several characters to play just for themselves, not like Borges, which made each character a concept. As such, He is like Kafka, complex characters like Funes or the detective of Death and Compass are very well build. But they are part of the text, while I can see Calvino characters moving out of his stories to others.

[stlukesguild]

Yes... I forgot Funes (the shame!:blush:) and Scharlach and Lönnrot from Death and the Compass. I also agree that the invention of Borges' self/narrator is probably his greatest character... not unlike Byron's narrator from Don Juan.

I can see Calvino characters moving out of his stories to others.

Which is something that Borges does himself... taking characters from other writers... or the writers themselves... and employing them as characters within his own fictions.

[asdpok]

I only read If on a winter's night a traveler, and have to agree with the guys saying that he is short stories writer, the way he connects the histories in this book... it is too "forced", it is not something natural, I dont like it.
maybe i should read something more from him to change my opinion...?

[JCamilo]

Yes... I forgot Funes (the shame!:blush:) and Scharlach and Lönnrot from Death and the Compass. I also agree that the invention of Borges' self/narrator is probably his greatest character... not unlike Byron's narrator from Don Juan.

I can see Calvino characters moving out of his stories to others.

Which is something that Borges does himself... taking characters from other writers... or the writers themselves... and employing them as characters within his own fictions.

Yes, but I do see Funes leaving his story and remaining himself. Even his Asterion is unlike any other. Calvino characters are more like popular characters, they move the stories, while borges made them the stories.

Voltaire, Byron, Dante, Plato, Kafka...they are all like Borges...

[stlukesguild]

Swift.

[stlukesguild]

I only read If on a winter's night a traveler, and have to agree with the guys saying that he is short stories writer, the way he connects the histories in this book... it is too "forced", it is not something natural

What is "natural" in art? All art is artifice... invention.

[stlukesguild]

Voltaire, Byron, Dante, Plato, Kafka...they are all like Borges...

And Calvino...? Sterne, the Arabian Nights, Lewis Carroll...?

[JCamilo]

I think Calvino is a little different, he coul use alter-ego,but his "self" was not a creation that would dictade his writting. How much of Byron poetic flaws were perfect to Byron?

But anyways, the original Scherazade didnt had any voice, either hers or of her creator. In the original text she did not told any stories we could read, it were just informed about the her and Sharyar frame story...

[stlukesguild]

As I'm currently reading Calvino's Complete Cosmicomics I must say that I find his prose has a sort of crystalline, magical, poetic quality to it. Borges strikes me a closer to Kafka and Swift and Voltaire in that while the prose is very well rendered... it almost strikes one initially as "deadpan". I remember first being disappointed with Kafka... coming to him from Poe and Baudelaire with an expectation of a sort of sensuous, atmospheric Surrealism... only to discover that he was nothing of the sort.

[asdpok]

What is "natural" in art? All art is artifice... invention.

Waht i mean is that when i read a text i am expection for something. I his book, or at least at the beging of it, i was expection ofr something that could happend. Something that even with low odds, had a chance of happening, his connections between those histories are too much, they crossed that line...

[Heteronym]

I will be the first to admit that he has no ability (or interest) in creating characters.

Well, what I said was, "unlike Borges, Calvino has no talent for writing about non-humans". I didn't say anything about characters. I've read his work many times too, I know very well he doesn't care a lot about creating characters.

When I said non-humans and mentioned the library as an example, I imagined I'd made it clear I was talking about his ability to write fascinating stories about coins, labyrinths, books and magical artefacts, an ability that in Calvino, as much as he tries to repeat it with his stories about cities and stars and colors and nebulas, I don't see.

[BrunoSchulz]

HMM...I'm fairly new here but find this to be a fascinating thread. I'm actually a fan of Buzzati, Calvino and Borges. I think all 3 of them are great writers but perhaps in different ways. I would have to say that Borges is at the top of that particular triumvirate though. Not only is he essentially the father of contemporary Latin American literature but also one of the greats of 20th Century literature period.

My favourite novels by Calvino include Invisible Cities and If On A Winters Night A Traveler, having admittedly collected all of his works so far translated into English. Borges is a master but my favourite work of his is the sublime Labyrinths, arguably the greatest short story collection of the last century. Buzzati I am less familiar with but have often regarded The Tartare Steppe as a beguiling masterpiece.

Nice to see such interest in these 3 marvelous authors.

[JCamilo]

As I'm currently reading Calvino's Complete Cosmicomics I must say that I find his prose has a sort of crystalline, magical, poetic quality to it. Borges strikes me a closer to Kafka and Swift and Voltaire in that while the prose is very well rendered... it almost strikes one initially as "deadpan". I remember first being disappointed with Kafka... coming to him from Poe and Baudelaire with an expectation of a sort of sensuous, atmospheric Surrealism... only to discover that he was nothing of the sort.

I think the difference is not the prose, both are crystalline, both obey those Tchekhov/Poe rules. Borges humor places him near Swift and Voltaire of course. His hermetic texts places him alongside Kafka. Also, Borges has much of Voltaire - I wonder when people will start to replace Voltaire back as major influence on style, the only thing makes Candide odd is his commentaries, all the rest are basically a guideline of adventure romance, social critic or short story and then you find he is the Dom Quixote as everyone reads him and can not stop admiring his witty and easy flow writting - specially the ironic aristocratic humor.
The difference is that before the prose, Calvino is always build structures to justify his themes. Wanna talk about cities? A dialogue between Marco Polo and the Khan, must write a book about first chapters, scientific laws becaming fantasy, tarot telling stories, etc. Then he writes. Borges was never so inventive, he does not justify the structure or the ties between his tales. They are usually old structures - frame stories, dreams, memories, journals, etc - what he does as inventive is placing a traditional in the place of another (an eassay in the place of a short story).
Calvino experiences made him apparently more human, his more popular traces, perhaps you can say he was not cured by Bioy Casares from barroquism...

As Calvino and non-humans, Invisible Cities.

[Alexander III]

I quite agree with JCamilo on the influence of Voltaire, which is not given int proper credit nowadays and also the fact that Calviono's Invisible Cities shows he has an incredible talent for giving life to that which in non-human as well, though I admit I cannot compare him to Borges as I have not read any of the latter.

[Heteronym]

I finished reading If on a winter's night a traveller today and I loved it; Calvino hadn't delighted me like this in a long, long time. I loved it more than I imagined, in fact I kept putting it off because I thought it was just another one of his cold postmodernist puzzles.

But this was a beautiful, intimate and witty story about the act of reading, the pleasures and frustrations of reading, the writer/reader relationship, the fragility of books and the uses and abuses of reading. What an outstanding panegyric!