Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City

published	1983 by Harvest/HBJ Book
binding	Paperback
isbn	0156572044 (isbn13: 9780156572040)
pages	121
description	Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer. Much to the p...more [close] Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer. Much to the puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams-but the results are never the expected ones. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
date added	12-26-06 edit book

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | more...

discuss this book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

friend reviews (0)

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 377)

John rated it:

02/11/08

bookshelves: short-story

Read in July, 2006

Here's a book I knew I would like the minute I held it in my hot little hands. For one thing, it's short - 120 pages, fairly large print. For another, it's symmetrical - 20 stories, 5 for each season of the year. And finally, having read one story from it in a seasonal collection already, I knew it was both magical and sarcastic, a combination as golden as snide and abstract are shit. (Ok, it could be argued magical and sarcastic and snide and abstract are po-tay-to and po-tah-to, but let's n...more Here's a book I knew I would like the minute I held it in my hot little hands. For one thing, it's short - 120 pages, fairly large print. For another, it's symmetrical - 20 stories, 5 for each season of the year. And finally, having read one story from it in a seasonal collection already, I knew it was both magical and sarcastic, a combination as golden as snide and abstract are shit. (Ok, it could be argued magical and sarcastic and snide and abstract are po-tay-to and po-tah-to, but let's not split hairs here.)

It took me three weeks to read Marcovaldo, because almost every story made me want to go back and read it again, not because it was hard to understand but because I wanted to experience the reading of it again. This is truly a book to savor. Some of the short stories (none are over 10 pages, most clocking in under 5) are merely funny in a subtle way, like "The Wasp Treatment" and "The Lunch-Box." Some, like "The Forest on the Superhighway" and "Smoke, Wind, and Soap-Bubbles," are caustic commentaries on industrialized society. Others - "The Good Air" and "The Wrong Stop" come to mind - are visceral, haunting journeys of Marcovaldo, a man who wants to see through the churning gears into a natural world that he's never seen except in fancy, and his family into a consumer culture they don't understand but charge dutifully into. Some reach almost terrifying levels of dementia, when the line between romantic idealism and harsh reality blur with Marcovaldo and his already-jaded family stuck at the borderland - see "A Saturday of Sun, Sand and Sleep" and "Marcovaldo at the Supermarket."

And then there are "The Moon and GNAC," "The Rain and the Leaves," and "Santas Children," the centerpieces of the book which do all of these things. All three come toward the end of the book, after the tone, setting, and characters have been subtly put into place. They have a few things in common - all have a conflict between the family unit and corporate culture, with the same winner each time; they each reflect an urbanization of myth, with neon lights and potted plants replacing cosmos and beanstalks; and each presents a subtle, heartbreaking moral judgment on the society they are set in and the losses man has swallowed in achieving it.

...less

Like this review? yes

title link
avg rating
small image
med image
large image

Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City

discuss this book

friend reviews (0)

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 377)

book data (includes all editions)

blog this book

popular shelves

other editions