Italo Calvino

I've just finished 'Under the Jaguar Sun' by Italo Calvino, which is a symbolist scavenger hunt crystallized into three awesome short stories. I had read 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveler' for AP English two years ago (which I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around). But, then again, I'm the only one I know who has read Calvino.

I thought all Postmodernists lacked imagination, but this guy is a salutory splash of water in the face of all that dry, tasteless contemporary literature. Perhaps there are a few of you out there who would like to share a thought or two on Calvino (I find him very enigmatic).

I don't agree about postmodernists lacking imagination, but that is not the point, is it.

All I've read by Calvino is 'Invisible Cities' and it was absolutely fantastic. He manages to create a whole city in just a few pages. And not only that, he manages to create one after the other, and you never get tired of it. Of course it's also full of brilliant ideas. Great books combine both: form and content, and they show you that those are indeed one. The greatest books do that with style. 'Invisible Cities' is a book like that.

Thank you for reminding me of that great writer. I should get me a new Calvino-book.

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Originally Posted by chrisvosje

I don't agree about postmodernists lacking imagination, but that is not the point, is it.

All I've read by Calvino is 'Invisible Cities' and it was absolutely fantastic. He manages to create a whole city in just a few pages. And not only that, he manages to create one after the other, and you never get tired of it. Of course it's also full of brilliant ideas. Great books combine both: form and content, and they show you that those are indeed one. The greatest books do that with style. 'Invisible Cities' is a book like that.

Thank you for reminding me of that great writer. I should get me a new Calvino-book.

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Thanks for the post, chrisvosje. I have not read 'Invisible Cities' but now you have piqued my curiosity.

Here are my thoughts on Calvino: He rules...and he rules some more, expecially because he is so versatile.

I too studied "If on a winter's night..." at college and that was the reason I originally discovered this place. I was trying to find some information about about the novel which I knew existed but which was eluding me. Great book though, in fact it has become one of my favourites. I also enjoyed "Invisible Cities" a lot.

*thinks about going out and buying some more*

I don't like postmodernism either, but anyway...
I had no idea that Calvino is so known abroad!
I read something by Calvino ages ago, and I remember being confused about some stuff...(it's been so long ago i can't even remember when...I guess I was less than 15 so probably a bit dumb ;))....especially that short story about ants ("La formica argentina" is the title in Italian, no idea about the translation), and "The path of spiders nest" (rough terrible translation of the title by me..."Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno" originally)...i was very lost about these ...

What I did like and I warmly advise you to read is the so called 'Trilogy'...i'm really helpless with translations here... The one about the guy living on trees ("Il barone rampante"...really no idea about how to translate it) is brilliant! Then my second favourite is "The non-exisisting knight" ("Il cavaliere inesistente" if my memory is not failing...), and then maybe his most famous work, about the guy split in half ("Il visconte dimezzato")

Oh well I'd better stop talking about something I barely remember... ;)

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Originally Posted by Koa

I don't like postmodernism either, but anyway...
I had no idea that Calvino is so known abroad!
I read something by Calvino ages ago, and I remember being confused about some stuff...(it's been so long ago i can't even remember when...I guess I was less than 15 so probably a bit dumb ;))....especially that short story about ants ("La formica argentina" is the title in Italian, no idea about the translation), and "The path of spiders nest" (rough terrible translation of the title by me..."Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno" originally)...i was very lost about these ...

What I did like and I warmly advise you to read is the so called 'Trilogy'...i'm really helpless with translations here... The one about the guy living on trees ("Il barone rampante"...really no idea about how to translate it) is brilliant! Then my second favourite is "The non-exisisting knight" ("Il cavaliere inesistente" if my memory is not failing...), and then maybe his most famous work, about the guy split in half ("Il visconte dimezzato")

Oh well I'd better stop talking about something I barely remember... ;)

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Sounds like we have an expert. I heard somewhere that in Italy Calvino is considered the most captivating writer since Dante. The American equivalent to Calvino is Kurt Vonnegut, but I think Calvino has a more colorful imagination (t-zero was very obscure . . . but I couldn't find a single thing wrong with any of the stories). I would learn Italian just to read him in the original.

If I were banished to the moon, I would definitely bring If on a Winter's Night a Traveler with me.

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Sounds like we have an expert.

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Not really...I truly said everything I remembered from reading it some years ago... And the last 3 works i mentioned as trilogy are his most famous stuff, at least here and as far as i know...

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I heard somewhere that in Italy Calvino is considered the most captivating writer since Dante.

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Not that I know... We never get to study Calvino at school cos in Italy we do everyhting in chronological order and he's too recent : most classes have troubles to find the time to study the early20th century stuff, nevermind something of the second half of the century (if i'm right with dates).
Therefore I have no idea of what critics think of him, nor who he is compared to...I found out today reading your post, that he is postmodernist, cos as I said I just read some of his stuff on my own in my early teens, when I used to read everything that came in mind without thinking about it much, and with no clues about critics or genders...

You remind me of myself when I was 15 or so and reading Kurt Vonnegut in high school . . . I read almost everything he ever wrote, and at such a fast pace it was easy to forget about symbolism and all that intellectual residue that is naturally brushed aside when seeing for the first time a writer who can actually make you laugh--out loud! I had to stop reading Vonnegut though because I wanted something to look forward to later on in life, something new of his that would remind me of the first time I had read him. When I found Calvino I saw for the first time someone who could do what Vonnegut did, but with more flexibility, more range. Though he is a hard guy to comprehend.