Calvino's main works and brief introduction

The cover of this page is the cover of the first edition of English hardcover, and the text introduction comes from the book packaging.

The road to the spider's nest

This is a story about Pian, an apprentice cobbler, who grew up in an old Ligurian fortress by the sea during World War II, when German troops were stationed in a small town and guerrillas were returning from the mountains. The champion is a thin child. In order to survive, he had to sharpen his head and find a way. Compared with other children with families, he is an "abandoned child" of society: apart from being a prostitute's sister, he has no relatives and no home. In the "smoky and dark pub", Champion was "forced to seek refuge in the adult world", where he heard a conversation that caused obscene laughter. He can imitate those dialogues, but he doesn't know what they mean. He sang sad songs and learned to insult and curse others-but there was not a moment when he didn't expect to be a guerrilla. "With his young friends, he will show them where spiders nest or fight them in bamboo forests on the river bed." Part of the story is how he joined the guerrillas and made friends with the "abandoned children" of another society (this is one of the most peculiar combinations after of mice and men); But more importantly, this story is a rough and gentle portrait of a boy who lives in a world that never needs his participation and never intends to let him participate. The author never speaks sentimentally. In fact,

Sean

O 'Falein found that the author "has some subjective identification with Pavis' character and Vittorini's tenacity and naivety." The first edition was published by Einaudi at 1947. 1957 via beacon

Press is published in English and translated by Archibald Colquhoun.

talocalvino

Synopsis of story:

This book tells the story of Baron Rondo, an Italian aristocratic boy in the17th century, who climbed a tree because of a conflict with his autocratic father, and never returned to the ground and lived as a arboreal for more than 50 years. The novel describes some important events that happened in the past 50 years to reflect Rondo's unique arboreal life, which is colorful and full of challenges. In the novel, "life in the tree" and "life on the ground" are two opposing concepts. The former is higher than the latter, symbolizing ideals, nobility and spirituality.

1767, Cosimo Pio vasco di Rondo 12 years old. He is an Italian aristocrat with rebellious spirit. One day, his devilish sister Betista cooked some creepy dishes, such as snails with their heads cut off, and his father ordered him to eat them. In order to resist the tyranny and injustice of his father, Cosimo climbed the tree like a child of his age. But unlike other children, he refused to come down again.

The Baron in the Tree is a novel about Cosimo's unique arboreal life. The imagination and wisdom in the book are amazing. Cosimo said that he could see things on the ground more clearly from the tree. After getting rid of the monotonous life on the ground, Baron Cosimo had a legendary experience, pirates, beauties and spies, and still had time to study, study and think about some deep-seated problems of his time. He corresponded with Diderot and Rousseau and became an expert in military strategy. When Napoleon came to see him, he overwhelmed Napoleon.

Whenever and wherever, he is spreading truth and justice, and he is equally friendly to thieves and nobles who steal fruits. He turned one of the most feared local thieves into a tireless bookworm, and the thief's enthusiasm for literature eventually led to the bankruptcy of his business. Women are also willing to come to the branch and stay with Cosimo. Viola, the bravest of them, was born outside Italy, with blond hair and blue eyes. Her emotional entanglement with Cosimo is the most intense and extraordinary part in the novel.

This beautiful novel satirizes the life and literature of18th century with imagination. Compared with Voltaire's satirical novels, Calvino's Baron in the Tree shows extraordinary effects in grasping the sublime and absurd. 1959 Einaudi publishing house, first edition. 1959 random house English first edition,

Translated by Archibald Colquhoun.

Knights that don't exist and viscount that splits in two.

These two novellas, together with the earlier Baron in the Tree, constitute a set of fable-like fantasy trilogy full of wisdom. They were later reprinted in Italy with the title "Our Ancestors". The nonexistent knight deliberately parodies knight novels. The impossible hero in the story, Agelii Rulf, is a set of empty armor, but he does have heroic fighting performance, which attracts the hatred of other knights and the love of an active female knight, Bradamette. In addition, Lombard, an idealist and volunteer fascinated by fighting, admired him immensely. In order to protect the knight's reputation, Agnes Rulf was forced to search all over Europe to prove the innocence of a virgin he saved fifteen years ago. In his search (cartoon imitation of the necessary plot of medieval legendary novels), he avoided the temptation of widow Priscilla and rescued a reluctant virgin from the Sultan's harem.

Half the Viscount took place in the late Middle Ages. This is a terrible story about Viscount Medardo in Rabat, Thailand. The viscount was blown in half by shells in the first battle with the Turks. He returned to Austrian territory-literally, he was half human-and became the embodiment of evil. He gave poisonous mushrooms to his children, drove his loyal nurse to leprosy village and made a vampire-like courtship to a beautiful shepherdess. When the other half of the viscount miraculously appears and tries to eliminate these injuries, the conflict of fate is inevitable, and the happy ending of the novel is as surprising as the story itself. As a fable of modern people (isolated and hurt), this novel has profound implications. As a deliberate imitation of Christian fables about good people and demons, this novel is also witty and fresh. Einaudi Press, 1st edition 195 1 and 1959, Random House English 1st edition, 1962, archibald.

Corkun translated.

Brief introduction of main characters

Vicomte Medardo, the evil half: only the right half of the body was kept, and the whole body was divided into two parts by the Turkish artillery and saved by the doctor. At that time, the other half of the body disappeared. Viscount Medardo came home half earlier than Goodall and inherited the title. With crutches, a black cloak and a hat, he was vicious and cunning, killing innocent people, splitting the bodies of birds, frogs, melons, mushrooms, flowers and other animals and plants in half, hanging suspects and cats together, executing farmers who could not pay taxes, setting fire to houses, sending self-critical Sebas Dijina to leprosy village for isolation, playing tricks on people, and repeatedly plotting against semi-good Medardo.

Viscount Medardo, half kind, only saved the left side of his body, abandoned it on the battlefield, was saved by a hermit, was charitable, and came back as a civilian, with a somewhat pedantic and hypocritical personality, inconsiderate and self-defeating.

Wonders of the Universe

Cosmic comic books are a high display of creativity. Its unique and fascinating purpose is to turn the theory of cosmic evolution into a story and create characters from mathematical formulas and single-celled organisms. The narrator Qfwfq spent his childhood in a vacuum without sound and time. In the flame of BIGBANG, he played with hydrogen atoms like marbles, galloped on the Milky Way and chased his friend Pfwfp all over the sky. Later, as a young man born on the earth, he had the same relationship with Ayl, Lll and Vhd.

Mrs. Vhd's shy first love; When a ladder appeared in his dream, he climbed to the moon along the ladder; He observed the floods on the earth and the first color of the earth's atmosphere formed by floods; As an adventurous young vertebrate, he immigrated from the ocean to the land. As the last lonely dinosaur, he wandered on the deserted and silent plateau, desperately looking for his own belonging. The most surprising thing is that Qfwfq

Looking back, he was still a mollusk, and he was still evolving at that time. He had no eyes, but his appearance made him open all his eyes.

The combination of mathematics and poetic imagination is extremely exciting. But the deeper meaning is that infinite time and space has become the instantaneous memory of limited life, from which readers can see the extreme insignificance of human beings as a part of a complex and huge universe. Einaudi press 1965 first edition, Hackett,

Support and. World Press 1968 English First Edition, translated by William Weaver.

Time zero

Qfwfq, the ever-changing protagonist in the cosmic comics, skillfully crossed the time, space, solar system and geological age and appeared in these new stories with a brand-new look. Although he is still so cynical, he has deepened the feeling that the common experience between prehistoric times and the present era is related, that is, he has a deeper understanding of human biology. He is an office worker in New Jersey who distorts the possibility of geological events with the present situation around him. During my weekend trip, I went to see the cliff from time to time. In the interwoven experience of ancient and modern times, I recalled that the sea water turned into blood water, and the blood water turned back into sea water. In Paris

Qfwfq fell in love with a freckled girl named Priscilla, which may be called cell-to-cell relationship.

In the second half of the book, Qfwfq disappears from view, and Calvino pushes the novel further into the field of logic and mathematics. People, lions and bows and arrows fool the time/space problem together; In Rush Hour, the pursuit finally found a solution in madness; Complicated lovers are driven crazy on the highway, and such stories are complicated.

Calvino applied the concept of science to modern life and literature, and with a light and clear prose style, he easily expanded people's thinking and was fascinating. Einaudi press 1967 first edition, Hackett,

Support and. World Press 1969 English first edition, translated by William Weaver, who won the National Book Award for his translation of this book.

Invisible city

In this novel, which challenges the objective reality, Kyle Poirot, a Venetian fantasy traveler, has a dialogue with Kublai Khan, an old and melancholy Tatar ruler. Kyle Poirot recalled to Khan the scenery of the cities he visited, all of which had charming female names. When Kyle Poirot told them that these cities looked as gorgeous as medieval manuscripts. Gradually, his story began to include things from the modern world. When travelers travel through time and space, bright pictures will become less pleasing to the eye. Finally, Khan fell into meditation on cities that don't exist yet, but will appear in the future. These upcoming nightmares include Hu Ya and the brave new world.

"There are countless forms: as long as each form has not found its own city, new cities will continue to emerge. Once various forms have exhausted their changes and isolated them, the end of the city will begin. " This key sentence can best describe the subtle game arranged by the author and the various scenes of the past, present and future that he magically evokes. Gore Vidal wrote, "Like Invisible City, it is the most difficult and completely unnecessary task to explain the contents of a book with incredible creativity." Audi press 1972

First edition, Hackett, Brass, Jovanovic Publishing House 1974 English first edition, translated by William Weaver.

Observer

The Observer and Other Stories contains three novellas. In the novel The Observer, realism is more important than imagination. The story takes place in the city of Cotolego in Turin. Most people can't see it, because there are cripples, idiots and deformed people abandoned by human beings. They form a small world by themselves, and the church takes care of them. On election day, Ameleg, a member of a left-wing party. Omeo sneaked into his opponent's stronghold to see if there was any election fraud. The collision of two people's thoughts is both touching and enlightening, and there is no lack of a clever ambiguity.

In other novels, imagination is further developed on the basis of realism. "Smoke" was written in 1958, which unexpectedly predicted that the concern about pollution rose to a crazy height. The Argentine Ant is a masterpiece about the fear that is hard to calm down, which vividly describes the failure of human beings in the face of a small and ubiquitous enemy. Observer

Einaudi press 1963 first edition; Argentine ant 1952 published in Botteghe Oscure.

X, English version in Adam, an afternoon, Collins Press1957; Smoking and

La Kong Di "; The Observer and Other Stories is published by Harcourt Brass Jovanovic Publishing House, 197 1, and translated by William Weaver.

If on a winter night, a traveler

In fact, A Traveler on a Winter Night is not a novel, but ten novels, each of which has a different plot, author, atmosphere and style. Each one came to an abrupt end after the first chapter, leaving a suspense. Two readers, a man and a woman, are following the story clues that interest them in this maze. In this way, a traveler on a winter night is inevitably intertwined with another book, and outside the town of Marburg, it smells of burnt onions from Poland.

With the development of this book, it has come into contact with other known and unknown literary works, including a translation from an extinct language. The author ridiculously pointed out the changes of modern literature from the perspective of an all-round connoisseur. Two confused readers are closely linked, and finally they read each other in a big bed. They are the real heroes of this story: if there are no readers to respond to, what is the purpose of writing?

It will become meaningless. Einaudi press 1979 first edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich press 198 1 English first edition, William.

Weaver translated.

A castle where fate crosses.

Calvino, with his incredible wit, created a series of fantasy short stories with tarot patterns and prototype characters. In a fairytale environment-castles and inns in the hinterland of the jungle-a group of men and women met by chance. They were so upset by the adventure that they found themselves losing their voices. In order to convey their destiny-love, fighting, conquest, betrayal-they must use the combination of tarot cards to hint at several scenes in their destiny one by one. Some stories are true folk myths and legends-parsifal, Oedipus, Hamlet-but others are entirely created by Calvino himself. All these stories are like a prism that blends ancient and modern; The author accurately reveals the potential mythological elements in our frenzied and unstable world in the twentieth century, and satirizes what we are now with ancient symbols.

Calvino was inspired by a set of exquisite15th century tarot cards (eight of which were reproduced in actual size and color). A set of18th century tarot cards is copied in black and white on the edge of these stories to show the progress of the stories. The method he uses is exactly the same as that used by fortune tellers, but his method is more complicated. What he created is actually a crossword puzzle and a painting game. This book is fascinating in its creativity, the use of tarot cards, and its elegant and subtle writing. Matteo Ricci Publishing House 1969 first edition, Einaudi Publishing House 1973 second edition, Harcourt.

Brass Jovanovic Publishing House 1976, English version 1977, translated by William Weaver.

Marco Waldo

Kyle Waldo, a natural dreamer, and Kyle Waldo, an intellectual star. Marco Waldo, as a junior worker in a boring industrial city in northern Italy in 1950s and 1960s, is good at discovering natural beauty and eager to get closer to his imagined unpolluted world. He pursued his dream. In order to reduce his burden, he used his frankness, not secular methods, to suppress his fantasies and attempts. His behavior puzzled his wife, children, boss and neighbors. The result he brought is beyond anyone's expectation.

In 20 stories with charming charm and extraordinary creativity, Itaro. Calvino created an unforgettable portrait, telling the story of the clever and brave Kyle Waldo: he planned to catch birds on his roof, he cut down billboards on the highway to find firewood, and he went to extremes to take care of a plant in his office (his unfortunate partner). Whether it's a person's war on "synthetic food" or a dream trip with his family in a supermarket where he can't afford anything, Kyle Waldo shows his unique nature. Einaudi Press 1963 First Edition, Hackett.

Brass Jovanovic Publishing House 1983 English First Edition, translated by William Weaver.

Difficult love

Except Calvino, who else can capture the moments in ordinary people's lives so accurately and beautifully, and integrate reality and fantasy into a furnace? The thief in the bakery, the fanatical night in the bar, the young soldier who fell into sexual fantasy, and the middle-class woman who found the lower part of her bikini falling off while swimming-all these were written by Calvino as a novel to explore the complex world inside human beings with beautiful pens. In these masterpieces of the forties and fifties, Calvino describes the awakening and vigilant moments when self-deception and the illusion of love (often self-love) are exposed. Harcourt

Brace Jovanovich 1983 English First Edition, William Weaver, Archivald Colquhoun and Peggy.

Wright translated.

The function of literature

In these articles, Calvino reflected on literature. He believes that literature is a huge narrative game, in which writers and readers are challenged to understand the world. He discussed the relationship between literature and science, philosophy and politics. He analyzed all aspects of classic writers' works in the past-Homer and Odyssey, Ariosto and Orlando Friob, Balzac and the city. At the end of the anthology, I praised the contemporary writer: Eugenio. Roland Montalais. Bart and Marion Moore.

From Calvino's literary criticism, we can see many themes woven into his works: the image of the city, cybernetics, myths and folk stories, and the adventures of heroic literature. In movies and novels, Calvino even revealed an interesting little secret about his novels: "If there is a movie that really influenced some of my novels, it is comics."

Calvino personally edited this anthology. The literary interest and critical opinions it conveys are important contributions to understanding the role of literature from a new perspective and comprehensively understanding the works of a modern master.

Einaudi press 1980, 1982, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich press 1986, William.

Weaver translated.

Italian folk stories

Who but Calvino can pick out 200 Italian folktales and retell them so well? Readers are introduced into a world full of Italian characteristics. Emperors and peasants, saints and demons, and a series of most exotic plants and animals have staged a vivid story against the background full of local customs and history. Whether the narrative is humorous or simple, absurd or mysterious, these stories are carried out in strict accordance with the logic of imagination.

Italian Folk Tales was rated as one of the top ten new books of that year by The New York Times, which won the hearts of fairy tale lovers immediately and made Calvino enter the ranks of great fairy tale writers like Brothers Grimm and Andersen. In this book, Calvino combines rich imagination and extraordinary writing ability to capture people's dreams and fantasies. Harcourt

Blaise Publishing House 1980 English First Edition, translated by george martin.

Paloma.

Paloma is one of Calvino's most outstanding works, and it is another masterpiece after Baron in the Tree and Cosmic Comics. It is no coincidence that its name is the same as that of a famous telescope. Mr Paloma is an explorer of knowledge and a dreamer in a sacred and absurd world. Mr Paloma used his vacation to investigate natural phenomena: the mating impulse of turtles, the moon during the day and the sky at night. After returning to the city, he went to that shop again and was attracted by frozen meat rolls, butter and casserole stew. Their names and labels reminded him of the taboos of grassland, hunting and animal husbandry. Mr Paloma is very interested in creativity. Deli is a museum of civilization. He is not interested in social affairs, nor does he participate in it. He prefers to speak his mind and listen to the silence of infinite space and the beautiful songs of birds. However, the civilized "self" who keeps bothering me insists on being a conservative and polite gentleman, which is a failure for a telescope, but it is gratifying for Mr. Paloma. This is a witty, elegant and imaginative story. Einaudi Press 1983 First Edition, Hackett.

Blaise Jovanovic Publishing House 1985 English First Edition, translated by William Weaver.

In the jaguar sunshine

In these witty and fantastic novels, feelings-taste, hearing and smell-dominate the hero's life. In Jaguar in the Sun, a couple traveled to Mexico to find a subtle combination of sex and spiritual love in a dish made of Chili and foreign spices. The tyrant who ascended the throne in The King is Listening is a prisoner of both rights and ears, because the echo in his huge palace brings all kinds of contradictory information about trial, love and conspiracy. In "Name, Nose", a well-informed man ponders fashionable perfume in order to find out the fragrance left by a mysterious girl wearing a mask, while in London, a drug-addicted rocker is like a beast in heat, and the smell of women makes him frantically look for it.

These feelings seem to satisfy desires and vent themselves, but in the end they only satisfy their sources: mouth to taste, ears to listen, nose to smell.

Three feelings, three adventure articles brilliantly reproduced by Italian masters in artistic language. The Sun under the Jaguar was first published in new york in 1983. The name Nose 1976 was first published in Antaeus. Garzanti Publishing House 1988 First Edition, Hackett.

Brasjovanovich Publishing House 1988 English First Edition.

A literary memorandum for the next millennium.

Itaro Calvino died on the eve of going to Harvard University, where he was supposed to give a lecture on Charles Eliot Norton. Because of his natural silence, he is always reluctant to talk about himself, but he is very interested in talking about the development of literature. In the process of preparing his speech-his wife recalled that this "troubled" the last year of his life-he inevitably mentioned his own works, his methods, intentions and hopes. In this way, this book became Calvino's legacy: the universal literary standards he pointed out for future people also became the code word for us to enter Calvino's own world.

What problems should be paid attention to in writing? Calvino prepared a speech for each of the five essential literary standards, which was arranged very concisely (it was a memorandum for readers). The first one is "light" Calvino quoted Lucretius, Ovid, Boccaccio, Cavalcanti, Leopaldi, Kundera and other writers, all of which were used to show his meaning: if we want to show the burden of survival, we should show it lightly. Another necessary literary standard is "quickness", which is a kind of agility that links action (symbolized by Mercury, the angel of the gods) with meditation (symbolized by kronos's Saturnalia). The next one is "accurate"

"Accuracy and clarity of language. The fourth lecture is "visibility", a visual image as a means to understand the world and itself. Then there is the original "complexity". Calvino describes some literary eccentrics (Flaubert, Gada, Musheer, Marcin Pajak and himself) and their efforts to express infinite possibilities that are both painful and tempting. The sixth and final lecture-planned but not yet completed-is called "coherence". We may be surprised at first, but then we will wonder what Calvino will say about this lecture. Just like his other works, such thinking always leads to more thinking. Through this book, Calvino gave us the most eloquent and least defended "literary defense" written in this century-this is also a gift suitable for the next Millennium. Esther Calvino directed the preparation for the publication of this book. She is the wife of Argentine-born Itaro Calvino and has worked as an interpreter for several international organizations. Harvard University Press 1988 First Edition, Patrick.

Kerry translation.

The road to St. Zhiwani.

This important confession made by an indispensable writer in the 20th century contains five touching and beautiful "memory exercises" about his life and work. In The Road to Saint-Zvani, Calvino painfully recalled his childhood environment. Standing on the last slope at the foot of St. Pierce is like standing on the border of two continents. Memoirs of an Audience gives a fascinating description of Calvino's youth, when he "went to the cinema almost once a day, sometimes even twice a day", and was deeply attracted by the life of Bangladeshi cavalry played by gary cooper and the rebellion of Charles Langton and clark gable for the prize money. Memories of a Battle focuses sharply on his experience in fighting fascism in World War II, but then it becomes a touching reflection on the role played by real and fictional elements in memory. Beautiful woman

Agréée is an episode of life in Paris, while Out of Ambiguity expresses the author's creed.

In The Road to Saint-Zhiwani, we believe that originality, elegance, wit and wisdom associated with Calvino can be seen everywhere. Mondadori Publishing House, 1990 first edition, Pantheon Publishing House, 1993 English first edition, Tim

Parks translated.

Numbers in the dark

This exquisite anthology contains some wonderful novels, fables and "impossible interviews". Its publication is an important literary event, which further consolidated Calvino's position as an indispensable writer in the 20th century. A list of "hateful contracts" with four bodies was found in the charred ruins of a house. A computer programmer decided to find out who made this horrible list, but he himself unconsciously fell into this deadly conspiracy. A traveler met a brand-new machine built for egalitarianism: it was used to cut off the heads of state officials at the end of his term. A 35,000-year-old Neanderthal came to modern society from the beautiful Neanderthal Valley outside Dusseldorf. A visitor asked him to prove that he had lived so long only because he longed for fame. Casanova, the legendary romantic master, tells the story of an escaped prisoner: Is the woman who has contributed every part of herself-spiritually or otherwise-actually using a cunning strategy to escape arrest?

These dozens of short stories, written between 1943 and 1984, are weird and scary stories, exciting and joyful stories, tragic and twisted stories, and sweet and cruel stories-they appear alternately and sometimes intertwined. These novels cover many topics-politics, the nature of power, the influence of ruthless spread of technology, the exploration of truth and the difficulties of human communication-and they are all purely Calvino-style.

Mondadori Press 1993 First Edition (Primal Che Tudica "Pronto"), Pantheon Press, English version, Tim.

Parks translated.

Fantasy story

The Fantasy Story, edited by Calvino, is a rich and wide-ranging collection of novels with 26 classic mysterious stories, which are selected from the works of many outstanding writers in Europe and America in the19th century. Calvino himself is an outstanding writer. He wrote an introduction to help understand this collection and wrote an attractive outline for each story.

The fantasy story combs the development and evolution of this kind of works, from its romantic origin in Germany to Henry James' ghost story. Calvino wrote, "Fantasy story is one of the most distinctive varieties of narrative works in19th century. For us, this is also one of the most meaningful works ... When we look at it with our eyes today, the supernatural elements in the core of these stories are meaningful, just like the resistance of those neglected, suppressed and forgotten things in consciousness ... Here we see their modernity, which is why they have successfully recovered in our time. "

"Fantasy Story" is a strange collection of works, edited by such an editor, and Sellerman. In Lu Shida's words, "he has the ability to see through the deepest part of human consciousness and bring the dreams there back to real life." This unique anthology includes writers from the19th century, including Andersen, Balzac, Ambrose Gwyneth, Dickens, Kipling, Mo Bosang, Poe, Walter Scott and many other writers. Mondadori Publishing House, the first edition 1983, is an independent two-volume book, formerly known as La Kong Di.

Fantasy: Volume I, Fantasy and Volume.

Secondo, Il Fantastico Quotidiano ",random house 1997.