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Italo Calvino, The Art of Fiction No. 130 (1992)
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.is/wHKO2 http://archive.is/wHKO2
- Causality1 7y agoFor those not interested in a tremendous amount of meaningless piffle about the article author, skip twenty paragraphs in to get the actual interview with Calvino.
- realbarack 7y agoOne of my favorite passages of prose is from Calvino's "Invisible Cities"; I can't pass up the opportunity to share it on HN: "When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories."
- spbaar 7y agoInvisible cities is the only "fictional" book I've read absolutely worth using a highlighter on. It's great to read a few pages here and there
- bromuro 7y ago“Le città invisibili” is a multi layered book. I’ve read it hundreds of times - just contemplate the beauty of the prose, humble, innocent, yet wise and deep. In Italian is even more astonishing.
- retsibsi 7y agoInvisible cities was too visual for me (I have a weak visual imagination, so I can't appreciate books that rely too heavily on images), but I really liked If On A Winter's Night a Traveler, and this quote reminds me that I want to read more Calvino. Would you (or anyone else here) recommend another book of his, given those preferences/weaknesses of mine?
- riffraff 7y agoit's been a while since I read it, and it wasn't my favourite, but I believe Palomar[0] was much less visual than Invisible Cities. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Palomar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Palomar
- ycombinete 7y agoHis letters. Wonderfully written, and not visual at all.
- retsibsi 7y agoThanks! Not something I would have naturally gravitated to, but I think I might enjoy them.
- alberto_ol 7y agoItalian here. I read all Calvino's novels and short-stories in high school. I would suggest The Nonexistent Knight and Cosmicomics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nonexistent_Knight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nonexistent_Knight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicomics
- retsibsi 7y agoThanks! Cosmicomics rings a bell as something I'd considered reading but never got around to, and those mini-synopses on the Wikipedia page are pretty enticing.
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
- bschne 7y agoThis is another one that really stuck with me: "But with all this, I would not be telling you the city's true essence; for while the description of Anastasia awakens desires one at a time only to force you to stifle them, when you are in the heart of Anastasia one morning your desires waken all at once and surround you. The city appears to you as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content. Such is the power, sometimes called malignant, sometimes benign, that Anastasia, the treacherous city, possesses; if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labor which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave."
- p0llard 7y agoA friend lent me a copy of Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler" which I would strongly recommend if you're looking for something a bit different. It's written in the second person (the protagonist is you, the reader) and is alarmingly postmodern.
- retsibsi 7y agoI think it's even enjoyable by people who would be put off by the phrase 'alarmingly postmodern'. It's playful and weird and meta, sure, but it's not difficult (or purely an excuse for Calvino to show off), and there is sincerity not far below the surface.
- p0llard 7y agoPerhaps I chose my words poorly; I very much enjoyed reading it, and would strongly recommend it to anyone.
- retsibsi 7y agoSorry, I didn't mean that as a criticism, and your message was pretty clear. I just thought that some people (possibly me, if I hadn't already read the book) might be unnecessarily put off by that final phrase.
- reacweb 7y agoI can not judge for all languages, but the french translation of this book is excellent.
- billfruit 7y agoPerhaps another work, in a similar vein (I thought it was better than, if on a winter's night..) is Vladimir Nabakov's Pale Fire.
- cryoshon 7y agocalvino was a fascinating person and a powerful author. it's a shame he isn't more recognized in the mainstream of western literature. he strikes me as the kind of person who is both mysterious and familiar at the same time -- someone who is wise and accessible, yet avuncular and rare to interact with. and, of course, he's deeply italian.
- billfruit 7y agoIn general Italian Fiction, I think receives much less attention than French or Russian, at least till the end of last century, it is not easy to find translations of the Italian greats like Manzoni, Tasso, even Petrarch these days.