Anyone read this? I read Invisible Cities over the summer and loved it and just finished up The Nonexistent Knight. Exceptionally fun read, easy to get through and totally engaging. I haven't read something quite as literarily impressive, imaginative, and fun in a long time.
I'm thinking about saving The Cloven Viscount for next weekend and delving into more serious works this week, but I'm very tempted to get into it immediately. But the Divine Comedy and Go Down, Moses won't read themselves.
Anyway, has anyone read these stories? Anyone have any thoughts on it? The central theme I'd argue is identity.
Comfy lit general discussion as well I suppose?
I just finished Invisible Cities the other day and adored it. I've been debating over reading this right away or perhaps waiting a little bit so I'm not only reading Calvino.
Have you read anything else by Calvino? The Cosmicomics looks great as well
I'm reading the Complete Cosmicomics right now, and it's superb.
Definitely a collection you have to read very slowly, but it's so worth it
I've read both of them, but haven't read the one about the baron in the trees or something like that. I preferred The Inexistent Knight over the Cloven Viscount, because the theme of being a non-person has more appeal to me than being 'split in half'. The book is very fun to read, but it seemed to me too 'direct'. The metaphor was too straightforward and obvious, and that distracted me a bit.
But it's a short, fun book to read and Calvino is great. Go on and read it.
>>7380004
>>7380006
I'd really like to read Cosmicomics as well as If On A Winter's Night a Traveler, but I haven't gotten to either yet. Calvino seems like an author to read slowly. While the world I've read by him aren't necessarily difficult, there's something about them that seems to reward slow reading. The section in The Nonexistent Knight when the nun was tracing Agilulf's journey from France to England then to Africa was such a pleasure to read. While there's a lot going on underneath Calvino's stories, he seems much more concerned with crafting a beautifully told story, and slow reading is necessary for appreciating his storytelling techniques.
>>7379986
The Nonexistend Knight and The Cloven Viscount are incredibly good, I could re-read them every year and never get tired
>>7380014
I got that impression from The Cloven Viscount from the description on the back, but I don't know if it'll bother me as it did with you. If the storytelling is as solid as The Nonexistent Knight I don't think it will.
>>7380027
>Agilulf's journey from France to England then to Africa was such a pleasure to read
the book is full of great chapters
>dat woman who wanted to fuck him but spend the whole night re-doing the bed instead
>>7380042
I loved how that section was full of blatant sexual metaphors like the bed moving as you said but the reader knows the nonexistent knight can't do a damn thing in bed.
Has anyone read any of Fantastic Tales? I know it's more of an anthology collected by Calvino, but how much is Calvino's writing actually in it? Does he rewrite any of the stories? Does he have commentary on them in the form of an introduction or with his own personal footnotes? What's the deal with it, is basically what I'm asking.
How can the viscount be cloven? This nigga story tellin from the grave? Shiieeet. Dam spuky.
>>7380122
Are you talking about Italian Folktales? Or is there another compendium of fairy tales by him?
