John's review
Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City
by Italo Calvino
John's review
Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City by Italo Calvino
John's review
rating:
bookshelves:
short-story
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"...more
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"...more
