Italo Calvino cast his lofty thoughts toward the pending millennium long before the rest of us. Now that the zeitgeist has caught up with him, it s...
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Mar 31, 2008
Nick
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Calvino is just so effortlessly wonderful. He and literature have a very intimate relationship and she tells him secrets about herself that no one else gets to hear. Until now! Calvino spills the beans on what are the qualities he feels are most important to the literature of the future: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity.
I think my favorites were lightness and multiplicity considering that quickness, exactitude, and visibility seem to be very self-evident More...
I think my favorites were lightness and multiplicity considering that quickness, exactitude, and visibility seem to be very self-evident More...
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Dec 23, 2011
Emanuela
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La lettura precedente risale a più di vent'anni fa. Nel frattempo ho letto altre opere come "Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" e "Palomar" che mi risultano adesso più chiare alla luce di questa rilettura.
Di fronte alle riflessioni di Calvino ci si sente piccoli piccoli con la sensazione di essere di fronte all'erudito, mai saccente, che si ascolta a bocca aperta e che fa magicamente apparire vicino a te, come ologrammi, i mostri sacri del pensiero a cui dà voce e i More...
Di fronte alle riflessioni di Calvino ci si sente piccoli piccoli con la sensazione di essere di fronte all'erudito, mai saccente, che si ascolta a bocca aperta e che fa magicamente apparire vicino a te, come ologrammi, i mostri sacri del pensiero a cui dà voce e i More...
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Mar 09, 2011
Mia
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Leggere “Lezioni Americane. Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio” di Italo Calvino ha avuto l’incredibile potere di farmi sentire una stupida.
Sospetto che per capirlo a pieno avrei dovuto avere una conoscenza più vasta dell’opera di Calvino, di tutta quanta la letteratura mondiale, tutta quanta la filosofia e una notevole destrezza tra i meandri della scienza.
E' un libro ricco, che affascina, che mette in moto il cervello.
E' un libro onesto, che non impone e non insegna, ma propone, getta i s More...
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Jan 11, 2011
Mangoo
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Calvino fu il primo italiano ad essere chiamato a tenere le Norton Lectures ad Harvard (seguito dopo pochi anni da Eco). Lavorò a questo testo per molto tempo, e morì prima di scrivere l'ultima "proposta".
Ci troviamo davanti ad un testo di erudizione e leggera autopromozione. Nel proporre 5 temi per le 5 conferenze, Calvino li nomina con la parte per cui pende. La prima è dedicata alla pesantezza del testo, e lui la titola "leggerezza". Senonchè qui Calvino non è leggere com More...
Ci troviamo davanti ad un testo di erudizione e leggera autopromozione. Nel proporre 5 temi per le 5 conferenze, Calvino li nomina con la parte per cui pende. La prima è dedicata alla pesantezza del testo, e lui la titola "leggerezza". Senonchè qui Calvino non è leggere com More...
Nov 16, 2010
Millenovecentottantacinque. A quindici anni dal giro di millenio Calvino suggerisce sei percorsi letterari per un ciclo di conferenze da tenersi negli Stati Uniti. Mancherà prima del viaggio, lasciandoci questi appunti di speranza: "la mia fiducia nella letteratura consiste nel sapere che ci sono cose che solo la letteratura può dare coi suoi mezzi specifici".</p>
Stralci rapsodici:
Leggerezza
"La leggerezza per me si associa con la precisione e la determinazione, non con la va
May 31, 2011
Ben
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Six Memos represents the English translations of essays on literature prepared by Italo Calvino for the Eliot Norton Lectures. Tragically, Calvino died a few months before delivering his discussions, but the existing manuscript was discovered by his widow, Esther, “all in perfect order, in the Italian original, on his writing desk ready to be put into his suitcase.”
Completed herein are five of the six “memos”: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, and Multiplicity with Consi More...
Completed herein are five of the six “memos”: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, and Multiplicity with Consi More...
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Feb 06, 2011
Waxwing
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An intriguing, eccentric little book of lectures on literary virtues, although the title is peculiar in that there are only five chapters. Calvino died before writing the sixth one, but you could fruitfully think of the whole text as the sixth memo which he intended to call "Consistency" - such is the lovely way the chapters hang together.
The five concepts Calvino presents are Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility and Multiplicity - all of which are illustrated with More...
The five concepts Calvino presents are Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility and Multiplicity - all of which are illustrated with More...
Sep 20, 2009
Tim
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I've had the uncanny experience of having read this book around when it came out and forgotten most of it, yet rereading it is sort of like being under hypnosis, as it essentially embodies a great deal of what I strive for in my own aesthetic and weltanschauung and how I prepare food and live when you get down to it. In his ode to lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity, Calvino dazzles in his apparently effortless incorporation of all of these qualities, even while admitt
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Sep 17, 2009
Ryan
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Italo Calvino's lectures on his hope for the future of literature show a deep understanding of both its changing and persistent qualities.
Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985) starts Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Trans. Patrick Creagh. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988, ISBN: 0679742379) off with a single paragraph introduction, stating near the end of it that his "confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literature can g More...
Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985) starts Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Trans. Patrick Creagh. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988, ISBN: 0679742379) off with a single paragraph introduction, stating near the end of it that his "confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literature can g More...
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Jul 19, 2011
Jim
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After posting a couple grumbling reviews, I owe the world of authors some gratitude. I first read Calvino's little book in 1988 and periodically I pick it up and read parts of it again. Six Memos are actually five lectures – illuminating the qualities Calvino most valued in fiction: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity. What's almost miraculous is that Calvino's lectures are perfect examples of the virtues he celebrates – graceful, amused, lustrous with civilized intelli
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Feb 09, 2012
Esther
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This is one of those books that I bought in college, started a few times and then just recently grabbed for a short plane ride, starting at whatever point I'd left off. Calvino is lovely and inspiring, and taught me a really important new word (syntony, "the act of participating in the world"). He's very abstract, though, and grounded more in literature than personal stories -- what I'm saying, I guess, is that right after reading Borges's essays on literature and storytelling, it suff
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Jul 24, 2009
Christopherseelie
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An erudite collection of lectures Calvino would have delivered at Harvard University had he not died. Despite the title, there are actually 5 essays, each based on a literary quality Calvino holds dear. He uses examples from classical and modern literature, giving a slight priority to Italian writers but mainly to make up for the dearth of attention they receive in America. A worthy bias. He explains his own process, and I wish he hadn't been so modest in this regard. But good taste compelled hi
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Oct 29, 2011
shanties
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Considerare le Norton Lectures come il testamento di Calvino è una tentazione, poiché è l'ultimo testo su cui lui lavorò; tanto che rimasero incompiute, e i Six Memos progettati sono in realtà cinque. Inoltre la morte di Calvino all'inizio di quell'anno accademico 1985-6 impedì che le lezioni venissero tenute ad Harvard, come previsto.
Delle cinque conferenze la terza, al centro dell'opera, è forse la meno riuscita; non a caso tratta dell'aspetto dello stile calviniano che più spesso More...
Delle cinque conferenze la terza, al centro dell'opera, è forse la meno riuscita; non a caso tratta dell'aspetto dello stile calviniano che più spesso More...
Nov 02, 2008
John
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Before he died, Calvino wrote five of six essays planned for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in the U.S. In his essays, Calvino explores what he thinks are the critical elements that literature needs to survive into what was then the next millennium. Written over 20 years ago, the book shows a little age (Calvino focuses on negative effects of television that have been magnified by computer games and the Internet), but on measure the book retains relevance.
Calvino wrote on Lightn More...
Calvino wrote on Lightn More...
Jul 11, 2008
Richard
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This book is a collection of talks on writing Calvino was preparing as a series of documents specifying some important keys of literature that he felt needed to be recorded as crucial elements of literary tradition. Indeed, in his essay "Visibility," Calvino brings up his concern for the future of imagination and literature in a world so full of prefabricated imagery, where images are provided rather than solicited. While his initial impulse was to write six lectures, he evidently repo
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Dec 24, 2011
Celeste
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Even though Calvino throws around a ton of famous works I've never read and even though there are whole chunks of untranslated Italian and even though parts of these essays go whoosh whoosh whoosh over my head, this is still an incredible book. Just knowing Calvino's idea of magical objects is worth the price of this book--and that's just one small section. I read parts of this book in undergrad before rereading it in its entirety, and a lot of it has stuck with me: the crab anecdote, especially
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Jul 27, 2011
Joana
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This books is my all time favorite, so I can't really spot anything less than perfect: I've read it at 17, 21, 23, and now going back to it, it still allows itself to infinite new interpretations. The lessons are on Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity and Consistency and the one he never got to finish. It is firstly talking about literature and the writing process, but addresses life and artistic production in general.
Unmissable :)
Unmissable :)
Jan 20, 2012
Julia
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I'm going to attribute my current feeling about this book to Subway Brain.
Calvino here talks again and again *around* things, and not *about* them. I'm never quite sure of what he's getting at. There are many delicious examples in the memos, which make this book worth an eventual re-read.
Perhaps doing my intense reading on the subway is making me want to absorb a good, deep point too quickly, and Italo requires more time and concentration than I have right now.
Calvino here talks again and again *around* things, and not *about* them. I'm never quite sure of what he's getting at. There are many delicious examples in the memos, which make this book worth an eventual re-read.
Perhaps doing my intense reading on the subway is making me want to absorb a good, deep point too quickly, and Italo requires more time and concentration than I have right now.
Dec 03, 2008
Julien
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5 lectures by Calvino that form a masterpiece. As much a survival method for the future (present?) as it is a review of the history of literature. 5 qualities in writing are explored (lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity) that have provided me insight and meaning to both my reading and writing pursuits. It also has given me a method to study other modes of expression such as music. I love this book!
Feb 14, 2010
Jason
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Calvino nails it:
"It sometimes seems to me that a pestilence has struck the human race in its most distinctive faculty--that is, the use of words. It is a plague afflicting language, revealing itself as a loss of cognition and immediacy, an automatism that tends to level out all expression into the most generic, anonymous, and abstract formulas, to dilute meanings, to blunt the edge of expressiveness, extinguishing the spark that shoots out from the collision of words and n More...
"It sometimes seems to me that a pestilence has struck the human race in its most distinctive faculty--that is, the use of words. It is a plague afflicting language, revealing itself as a loss of cognition and immediacy, an automatism that tends to level out all expression into the most generic, anonymous, and abstract formulas, to dilute meanings, to blunt the edge of expressiveness, extinguishing the spark that shoots out from the collision of words and n More...
Jan 09, 2008
Tyler
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Disclaimer: This is a book that is actually a compilation of memos Calvino prepared for a lecture he was about to give at Harvard before he died suddenly in 1985. This is purely academic, and a reflection of his thoughts of literature. Don't read this if you do not want to read critical essays.
Calvino intended to write six memos on characteristics he deemed critical for literature in order to survive into the next millennium. He unfortunately never finished writing the sixth memo. More...
Calvino intended to write six memos on characteristics he deemed critical for literature in order to survive into the next millennium. He unfortunately never finished writing the sixth memo. More...
Dec 24, 2011
Isla
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I love this book. I started reading in early in the fall and found I was reading it too quickly to digest, so I put it down in order to let the ideas seep into my brain. Calvino's digressions form a Socratic dialogue that allowed me to enter and engage with his ideas in a way I have never experienced (my only regret is that the margins were too narrow). This book deepened my understanding of and reflections on literature in general and my writing in particular. Plus, there is a particularly Ital
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Sep 06, 2011
Bassaimer
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L'eccessiva ambizione dei propositi può essere rimproverabile in molti campi d'attività, non in letteratura. La letteratura vive solo se si pone degli obbiettivi smisurati, anche al di là di ogni possibilità di realizzazione. Solo se poeti e scrittori si proporranno imprese che nessun altro osa immaginare la letteratura continuerà ad avere una funzione.
Apr 12, 2011
Lily
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"Drawing on the works of Lucretius, Ovid, Boccaccio, Flaubert, Kundera, Perec and many more, he pinpoints the universal laws and literary values: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity." From the Goodreads description.
I very much enjoyed these essays when I spent some time with them. I think they are all excellent guides for a writers.
I very much enjoyed these essays when I spent some time with them. I think they are all excellent guides for a writers.
Mar 05, 2011
Richard
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In the five essays here (the sixth went unwritten because of the author's death), we are pointed towards a great variety of authors, ancient and modern, whose work exemplified one aspect of artistic value: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, and Multiplicity. Calvino includes himself in the fifth chapter and it is both sad and fascinating to speculate on what it tells us what direction he might have continued his writing had he lived. It will send a Goodreads member interested in such
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Dec 01, 2008
iele
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honestly, a real forever all time fav. i lent my copy with all my loving scribbles to someone i didn't know all that well and then sadly never got it back, but this is one i would recommend owning for sure. i often returned to it as a reference/place of grounding when it was in my possession and think of it still.
Mar 26, 2011
Maja
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Wonderful book by Italo Calvino. One of the greatest European minds explains the specific values in literature... but don't get confused: his lectures are not just about literature they are about art of expression and creative process. The Slovene title: "Ameriška predavanja: Šest predlogov za naslednje tisocletje".
Feb 19, 2009
Cera
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I am glad I read this, and it was quite interesting, but I don't think the things Calvino values in literature are at all similar to the things I value. It stretched my mind, but was sufficiently alien that I didn't really come away from it with any new ideas that I could hold onto and apply to my reading.
Jul 02, 2007
kate
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This book is based off the notes Calvino had prepared for a lecture. Unfortunately, he died before he could deliver the lecture, leaving us with only five completed memos out of the six he had originally planned on writing. The five essays contained here, though, are some of the most engaging essays on literature that I've ever read. Combining his own insights with personal anecdotes and passages from other works, Calvino highlights some attributes of writing that he finds/found "best."
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Jul 21, 2011
Aurora
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A much-needed reminder of why I write, and of what writing can do that no other art can. Each "memo" is centered on a different quality that Calvino considers essential to literature (and thus timeless). His thoughts on lightness and exactitude especially (but to me the entire second half of the book is really about exactitude) will continue to blow my mind for a long time.
