Felix Calvino's Blog, page 10
March 16, 2014
Alfonso - Goodreads I Ashley
March 17, 2014
MMelissa Ashley rated it 5 of 5 stars
I have just finished this beautiful book. There is so much wisdom packed into those 117 pages. The closing image of the snake shedding its skin and Alfonso in the house he renovated brought tears to my eyes. Calvino uses clothing and the home as great images for Alfonso transforming into a man. I loved how the author merged the imagery on the final page. Were they ghosts, memories, of Alfonso as a boy with his mother, or was it the light, when you just open your eyes? It all works and flows together. Calvino’s writing is exquisite, the sadness, the complexity of the emotion that he has invested in Alfonso, told through his daily rituals, his habits and behaviour, feels very real. I can relate to his struggles to go out into the world, and then the rewards, or the love, the living, he receives when he does muster up the courage to do so.
I really liked Nancy. She is portrayed in a way that grows more and more complex, with different layers of her personality unfolding. I think her patience with Alfonso the most important aspect of her, in a way. That is what he needs, at that moment. He is unable to help himself, he is paralysed, and in fact, acts in ways to push her away. He is so exquisitely conflicted and tortured by his inexperience, expectations, and needs. Nancy does not seem to know Alfonso well, but it seems that she accepts him and, not necessarily understands him, maybe she does, I cannot tell, but she is patient with him. She allows him to be himself. I am pleased the author allowed the reader hope in the end. I find Calvino’s writing very comforting, and that is the writing that I love most of all. Writing that is true, that tells me something about living, about being alive, wrapping sadness and joy up together. That is why I read literature, to discover something that is true in a story, and to be comforted.
MMelissa Ashley rated it 5 of 5 stars
I have just finished this beautiful book. There is so much wisdom packed into those 117 pages. The closing image of the snake shedding its skin and Alfonso in the house he renovated brought tears to my eyes. Calvino uses clothing and the home as great images for Alfonso transforming into a man. I loved how the author merged the imagery on the final page. Were they ghosts, memories, of Alfonso as a boy with his mother, or was it the light, when you just open your eyes? It all works and flows together. Calvino’s writing is exquisite, the sadness, the complexity of the emotion that he has invested in Alfonso, told through his daily rituals, his habits and behaviour, feels very real. I can relate to his struggles to go out into the world, and then the rewards, or the love, the living, he receives when he does muster up the courage to do so.
I really liked Nancy. She is portrayed in a way that grows more and more complex, with different layers of her personality unfolding. I think her patience with Alfonso the most important aspect of her, in a way. That is what he needs, at that moment. He is unable to help himself, he is paralysed, and in fact, acts in ways to push her away. He is so exquisitely conflicted and tortured by his inexperience, expectations, and needs. Nancy does not seem to know Alfonso well, but it seems that she accepts him and, not necessarily understands him, maybe she does, I cannot tell, but she is patient with him. She allows him to be himself. I am pleased the author allowed the reader hope in the end. I find Calvino’s writing very comforting, and that is the writing that I love most of all. Writing that is true, that tells me something about living, about being alive, wrapping sadness and joy up together. That is why I read literature, to discover something that is true in a story, and to be comforted.
March 5, 2014
Alfonso - Goodreads I Katherine
March 6, 2014
Mar 04, 2014Katherine rated it 5 of 5 starsA beautiful, gentle book - filled with longing and exquisitely phrased.
The pace is slow and the story subtle, both good things in this case.
Calvino captures the loneliness and dislocation of the migrant's experience perfectly.
Mar 04, 2014Katherine rated it 5 of 5 starsA beautiful, gentle book - filled with longing and exquisitely phrased.
The pace is slow and the story subtle, both good things in this case.
Calvino captures the loneliness and dislocation of the migrant's experience perfectly.
March 4, 2014
A Hatful of Cherries - Review I Bazzett
March 5, 2014
I've only even been aware of Felix Calvino for a month or two, and his 2007 story collection, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES, is the second of his books I've read. (Last week I read his 2013 novella, ALFONSO.) Both books are just so damn good that Calvino is now on my short list of favorite authors.
There are sixteen stories here, most of them very short, characterized by a delicacy and economy of phrasing not often found in writers today. A bit of Hemingway, a touch of Chekhov, and the rest is ... well, Calvino, I suspect, and, taken all together, the effect is simply perfect. His settings range from post-Civil War Spain in the 1930s to modern-day Australia and its Spanish migrant population there. The subjects too are simple and finely wrought. A small boy wishing for a knife of his own ("The pocket knife"). A groom en route to his wedding who goes mysteriously missing ("Detour"). A young couple hopes in vain for a better life, a dream dashed by senseless violence ("Basilio") A courtship by mail based on lies and half-truths which ends badly ("The bride") - or does it? Unattached men searching tentatively for love and new beginnings ("A new place"). A slyly dry sense of humor pervades "The laundry incident" and "Restless hands."
Every one of these stories is honed and polished to perfection, but if I had to pick a favorite - a hard choice - it would probably be the title story, which uses the innocence and budding sexual curiosity of two village boys to tell the story of a hired girl who gets "in trouble," but lets the reader ponder "whodunit." Or maybe the last story, "Unfinished thoughts," about two old women, "once darlings of their village, now wrinkled skin bags holding together bundles of bones and two old brains bent on pain and nostalgic reflection." Lucia has loved Elvira "always," and now Elvira is dying.
What I find most astounding about his work is not that it's so good and so mature; but that English is his THIRD language (after his native Galician and Spanish). Felix Calvino may have come late to this writing thing, but he has obviously been working hard at it, and in the writing of just two slim volumes, it appears he has already mastered it. These are great stories. I will be impatiently awaiting his next book. Bravo, Mr. Calvino!
I've only even been aware of Felix Calvino for a month or two, and his 2007 story collection, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES, is the second of his books I've read. (Last week I read his 2013 novella, ALFONSO.) Both books are just so damn good that Calvino is now on my short list of favorite authors.
There are sixteen stories here, most of them very short, characterized by a delicacy and economy of phrasing not often found in writers today. A bit of Hemingway, a touch of Chekhov, and the rest is ... well, Calvino, I suspect, and, taken all together, the effect is simply perfect. His settings range from post-Civil War Spain in the 1930s to modern-day Australia and its Spanish migrant population there. The subjects too are simple and finely wrought. A small boy wishing for a knife of his own ("The pocket knife"). A groom en route to his wedding who goes mysteriously missing ("Detour"). A young couple hopes in vain for a better life, a dream dashed by senseless violence ("Basilio") A courtship by mail based on lies and half-truths which ends badly ("The bride") - or does it? Unattached men searching tentatively for love and new beginnings ("A new place"). A slyly dry sense of humor pervades "The laundry incident" and "Restless hands."
Every one of these stories is honed and polished to perfection, but if I had to pick a favorite - a hard choice - it would probably be the title story, which uses the innocence and budding sexual curiosity of two village boys to tell the story of a hired girl who gets "in trouble," but lets the reader ponder "whodunit." Or maybe the last story, "Unfinished thoughts," about two old women, "once darlings of their village, now wrinkled skin bags holding together bundles of bones and two old brains bent on pain and nostalgic reflection." Lucia has loved Elvira "always," and now Elvira is dying.
What I find most astounding about his work is not that it's so good and so mature; but that English is his THIRD language (after his native Galician and Spanish). Felix Calvino may have come late to this writing thing, but he has obviously been working hard at it, and in the writing of just two slim volumes, it appears he has already mastered it. These are great stories. I will be impatiently awaiting his next book. Bravo, Mr. Calvino!
February 26, 2014
Alfonso - Review / Bazzett
February 27, 2014
Felix Calvino, born in Spain, emigrated to Australia in the sixties where, according to his bio note, he worked for many years in the travel, restaurant and wine industry. He did not attend college until the late 1990s when he studied Spanish and English at the University of Melbourne and began writing. In 2007 he published his first book, a story collection, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES. As of this moment (February 2014) I'm not sure if Felix Calvino's ALFONSO is even available for sale in the United States, but I hope it will be very soon. Because I can't remember enjoying a first novel (a novella really, at just 117 pages) this much in a very long time.
ALFONSO is a deceptively simple story of the life of an immigrant worker, transplanted from his native Galicia in Spain, to Sydney, Australia in the early sixties. Having grown up desperately poor in Franco's Spain, left fatherless by that country's Civil War, Alfonso (there are no last names in the story) is fortunate enough to be apprenticed to a wise old woodworker/carpenter from the age of twelve. Several years later, armed with a skilled trade, an inbred sense of right and wrong, and a strong work ethic, the young man bids farewell to his mother and brother, and sets off for Australia. There he finds regular work with a Sydney construction firm, lives very frugally, saves his money and dreams of a house and family. He takes night courses to learn English and mixes shyly at the local Spanish Club, but fails to find the love he is looking for, feeling torn between the old ways of Spain and those of his newly adopted country, of which a friend says, "Australia had no soul, only overtime, beer, and poker machines."
But Alfonso perseveres in pursuing his dream, buys a ruined row house which he repairs and restores over a three-year period, as he watches his friends and co-workers begin to marry and start families - the part of his dream which comes harder. He listens to other friends complain about Australian women and struggles to slough off the Spanish idea of marriage in which the man must always be dominant and the woman submissive, and engages in a cautious and almost fearful chase-and-retreat courtship of Nancy, a strong young Australian woman. The story culminates with an extremely satisfying and exquisitely crafted scene suggesting rebirth and new beginnings.
Alfonso is a wonderfully imagined and fully realized character that will resonate with readers for a long time. I loved this book! Highly recommended. (
) 
TimBazzett
| Feb 26, 2014 |
Felix Calvino, born in Spain, emigrated to Australia in the sixties where, according to his bio note, he worked for many years in the travel, restaurant and wine industry. He did not attend college until the late 1990s when he studied Spanish and English at the University of Melbourne and began writing. In 2007 he published his first book, a story collection, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES. As of this moment (February 2014) I'm not sure if Felix Calvino's ALFONSO is even available for sale in the United States, but I hope it will be very soon. Because I can't remember enjoying a first novel (a novella really, at just 117 pages) this much in a very long time.
ALFONSO is a deceptively simple story of the life of an immigrant worker, transplanted from his native Galicia in Spain, to Sydney, Australia in the early sixties. Having grown up desperately poor in Franco's Spain, left fatherless by that country's Civil War, Alfonso (there are no last names in the story) is fortunate enough to be apprenticed to a wise old woodworker/carpenter from the age of twelve. Several years later, armed with a skilled trade, an inbred sense of right and wrong, and a strong work ethic, the young man bids farewell to his mother and brother, and sets off for Australia. There he finds regular work with a Sydney construction firm, lives very frugally, saves his money and dreams of a house and family. He takes night courses to learn English and mixes shyly at the local Spanish Club, but fails to find the love he is looking for, feeling torn between the old ways of Spain and those of his newly adopted country, of which a friend says, "Australia had no soul, only overtime, beer, and poker machines."
But Alfonso perseveres in pursuing his dream, buys a ruined row house which he repairs and restores over a three-year period, as he watches his friends and co-workers begin to marry and start families - the part of his dream which comes harder. He listens to other friends complain about Australian women and struggles to slough off the Spanish idea of marriage in which the man must always be dominant and the woman submissive, and engages in a cautious and almost fearful chase-and-retreat courtship of Nancy, a strong young Australian woman. The story culminates with an extremely satisfying and exquisitely crafted scene suggesting rebirth and new beginnings.
Alfonso is a wonderfully imagined and fully realized character that will resonate with readers for a long time. I loved this book! Highly recommended. (
)
TimBazzett
| Feb 26, 2014 |
February 14, 2014
Alfonso - Review / Harp
February 15, 2014
Grady Harp's review
Alfonso
by Felix Calvino
Cultural Heritage and Miscegenation
Félix Calvino knows the immigrant experience as well as anyone writing. His newest novel, ALFONSO, not only substantiates that his book of short stories, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES, suggested the arrival of an important new voice on the literary scene, it also proves that his brief ideas about finding one’s place in a new country can and have been successfully developed into a full fledged novel.
Calvino was born in Galicia and spent his childhood on a farm not unlike that of his main character the title. Under the reign of General Franco, Calvino fled to England to study and work and eventually migrated to Australia where he currently lives and writes his magical prose. And it is with that insight that Calvino writes about Alfonso, a Spaniard who has immigrated to Australia (Sydney) via stopovers in England and other entertainingly at times hilarious and at other times frightening places. Once in Australia he must learn a new language, work at any job available to immigrants whose language skills of the new home are nascent, make friends with both other people who are form Spain as immigrants and form other countries: Australia is as much a melting pot a s the USA!
But Alfonso is determined, moves form his meager ‘bed sitter’ to purchase a house that needs more than cosmetic repairs, discovers the behavior patterns of neighbors not used to immigrant status and cultures and customs, continues to seek the woman whom he can share his life, meets his dream, Nancy, who is Australian and takes trips to Europe, placing what Alfonso perceives is already an inherent distance between their lives. How Alfonso adjusts during the years in which this novel takes place (1962 to 1971) defines so much more about the immigrant experience and the effects of the Vietnam War and other world events on our transplanted Spanish Australian that many history books piled atop each other could.
Félix Calvino’s voice may be a gentle and quiet one, but it is all the more powerful for the caring way he imparts his story. He has created such poignant phrases as ‘Divorces and funerals are wives’ ultimate weddings’, but to give the reader a sample of his rather astonishingly vivid method of approaching his subject the following extract is a fine one to study:
‘The four walls he had washed and painted twice as a gesture of friendship would have captured, as a mirror would, his frustration at trying to sew on a button, or trying not to scorch a new shirt; his clumsy attempts at cooking dinner with half of the ingredients missing until he trained himself to write a shopping list before going shopping; his relentless learning and relearning of English words; his chores of washing, cleaning, daily bed-making, and weekly changing of the bed sheets. These same walls would have recorded his loneliness in daytime and sadness always at night. The narrow wardrobe, the Triumph stove, the couch, two wooden chairs, and the aluminum table with the green Formica top would have watched his character crossing from youth to man, although he could not identify the exact turning point. Perhaps the pieces came together like a jigsaw. He remembered feeling proud of doing his job well, of having the first thousand-dollar balance stamped in his ANZ Bank savings book. Above all, he had been deeply thankful for having escaped poverty, for being in control of his life, and for how good a life he had. And there was the vague beginning, and understanding, of the forming of his two selves – one made of past memories, the other of new dreams. Dreams had been good companions in the village and they remained so in Australia. Three of them had crystallized into purpose: the satisfactory command of the English language, the owning of a house, and the companionship of a woman. The first two were going well, he thought.’
This extraction from his novel, not unlike his short stories, shows the power in this writer’s mind and hands. He has arrived.
Grady Harp
Alfonso - Review (3)
February 15, 2014
Grady Harp's review
Alfonso
by Felix Calvino
Cultural Heritage and Miscegenation
Félix Calvino knows the immigrant experience as well as anyone writing. His newest novel, ALFONSO, not only substantiates that his book of short stories, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES, suggested the arrival of an important new voice on the literary scene, it also proves that his brief ideas about finding one’s place in a new country can and have been successfully developed into a full fledged novel.
Calvino was born in Galicia and spent his childhood on a farm not unlike that of his main character the title. Under the reign of General Franco, Calvino fled to England to study and work and eventually migrated to Australia where he currently lives and writes his magical prose. And it is with that insight that Calvino writes about Alfonso, a Spaniard who has immigrated to Australia (Sydney) via stopovers in England and other entertainingly at times hilarious and at other times frightening places. Once in Australia he must learn a new language, work at any job available to immigrants whose language skills of the new home are nascent, make friends with both other people who are form Spain as immigrants and form other countries: Australia is as much a melting pot a s the USA!
But Alfonso is determined, moves form his meager ‘bed sitter’ to purchase a house that needs more than cosmetic repairs, discovers the behavior patterns of neighbors not used to immigrant status and cultures and customs, continues to seek the woman whom he can share his life, meets his dream, Nancy, who is Australian and takes trips to Europe, placing what Alfonso perceives is already an inherent distance between their lives. How Alfonso adjusts during the years in which this novel takes place (1962 to 1971) defines so much more about the immigrant experience and the effects of the Vietnam War and other world events on our transplanted Spanish Australian that many history books piled atop each other could.
Félix Calvino’s voice may be a gentle and quiet one, but it is all the more powerful for the caring way he imparts his story. He has created such poignant phrases as ‘Divorces and funerals are wives’ ultimate weddings’, but to give the reader a sample of his rather astonishingly vivid method of approaching his subject the following extract is a fine one to study:
‘The four walls he had washed and painted twice as a gesture of friendship would have captured, as a mirror would, his frustration at trying to sew on a button, or trying not to scorch a new shirt; his clumsy attempts at cooking dinner with half of the ingredients missing until he trained himself to write a shopping list before going shopping; his relentless learning and relearning of English words; his chores of washing, cleaning, daily bed-making, and weekly changing of the bed sheets. These same walls would have recorded his loneliness in daytime and sadness always at night. The narrow wardrobe, the Triumph stove, the couch, two wooden chairs, and the aluminum table with the green Formica top would have watched his character crossing from youth to man, although he could not identify the exact turning point. Perhaps the pieces came together like a jigsaw. He remembered feeling proud of doing his job well, of having the first thousand-dollar balance stamped in his ANZ Bank savings book. Above all, he had been deeply thankful for having escaped poverty, for being in control of his life, and for how good a life he had. And there was the vague beginning, and understanding, of the forming of his two selves – one made of past memories, the other of new dreams. Dreams had been good companions in the village and they remained so in Australia. Three of them had crystallized into purpose: the satisfactory command of the English language, the owning of a house, and the companionship of a woman. The first two were going well, he thought.’
This extraction from his novel, not unlike his short stories, shows the power in this writer’s mind and hands. He has arrived.
Grady Harp
February 13, 2014
Alfonso - Review I Powell
February 13, 2014
Alfonso is a story of a spiritual struggle within an immigrant’s soul. As an outsider, Alfonso labors to fit in and embrace his new life in a new world – Australia – only to find himself succumbing to dark undertows of insult, isolation, and estrangement. Though he strives to cope with these dangerous forces, the only language he knows with which to confront them is a pictorial one, the duende-infused images of his boyhood Galacian village: shadowy forests and dark pines, village girls with eyes the colour of chestnuts, mysterious croaking of black frogs, poison kisses of witches, crows whose mere presence means death. Though Alfonso’s newfound mastery of English lends him an instrument of accommodation and a facile veneer of acceptability, the deep grammar of his imaginal tongue threatens to undermine all the new values to which he aspires.
James N. Powell
Alfonso is a story of a spiritual struggle within an immigrant’s soul. As an outsider, Alfonso labors to fit in and embrace his new life in a new world – Australia – only to find himself succumbing to dark undertows of insult, isolation, and estrangement. Though he strives to cope with these dangerous forces, the only language he knows with which to confront them is a pictorial one, the duende-infused images of his boyhood Galacian village: shadowy forests and dark pines, village girls with eyes the colour of chestnuts, mysterious croaking of black frogs, poison kisses of witches, crows whose mere presence means death. Though Alfonso’s newfound mastery of English lends him an instrument of accommodation and a facile veneer of acceptability, the deep grammar of his imaginal tongue threatens to undermine all the new values to which he aspires.
James N. Powell
Alfonso - Review (2)
February 13, 2014
Alfonso is a story of a spiritual struggle within an immigrant’s soul. As an outsider, Alfonso labors to fit in and embrace his new life in a new world – Australia – only to find himself succumbing to dark undertows of insult, isolation, and estrangement. Though he strives to cope with these dangerous forces, the only language he knows with which to confront them is a pictorial one, the duende-infused images of his boyhood Galacian village: shadowy forests and dark pines, village girls with eyes the colour of chestnuts, mysterious croaking of black frogs, poison kisses of witches, crows whose mere presence means death. Though Alfonso’s newfound mastery of English lends him an instrument of accommodation and a facile veneer of acceptability, the deep grammar of his imaginal tongue threatens to undermine all the new values to which he aspires.
James N. Powell
Alfonso is a story of a spiritual struggle within an immigrant’s soul. As an outsider, Alfonso labors to fit in and embrace his new life in a new world – Australia – only to find himself succumbing to dark undertows of insult, isolation, and estrangement. Though he strives to cope with these dangerous forces, the only language he knows with which to confront them is a pictorial one, the duende-infused images of his boyhood Galacian village: shadowy forests and dark pines, village girls with eyes the colour of chestnuts, mysterious croaking of black frogs, poison kisses of witches, crows whose mere presence means death. Though Alfonso’s newfound mastery of English lends him an instrument of accommodation and a facile veneer of acceptability, the deep grammar of his imaginal tongue threatens to undermine all the new values to which he aspires.
James N. Powell
Alfonso – Review (2)February 13, 2014Alfonso is a story o...
Alfonso – Review (2)
February 13, 2014
Alfonso is a story of a spiritual struggle within an immigrant’s soul. As an outsider, Alfonso labors to fit in and embrace his new life in a new world – Australia – only to find himself succumbing to dark undertows of insult, isolation, and estrangement. Though he strives to cope with these dangerous forces, the only language he knows with which to confront them is a pictorial one, the duende-infused images of his boyhood Galacian village: shadowy forests and dark pines, village girls with eyes the colour of chestnuts, mysterious croaking of black frogs, poison kisses of witches, crows whose mere presence means death. Though Alfonso’s newfound mastery of English lends him an instrument of accommodation and a facile veneer of acceptability, the deep grammar of his imaginal tongue threatens to undermine all the new values to which he aspires.
James N. Powell
February 13, 2014
Alfonso is a story of a spiritual struggle within an immigrant’s soul. As an outsider, Alfonso labors to fit in and embrace his new life in a new world – Australia – only to find himself succumbing to dark undertows of insult, isolation, and estrangement. Though he strives to cope with these dangerous forces, the only language he knows with which to confront them is a pictorial one, the duende-infused images of his boyhood Galacian village: shadowy forests and dark pines, village girls with eyes the colour of chestnuts, mysterious croaking of black frogs, poison kisses of witches, crows whose mere presence means death. Though Alfonso’s newfound mastery of English lends him an instrument of accommodation and a facile veneer of acceptability, the deep grammar of his imaginal tongue threatens to undermine all the new values to which he aspires.
James N. Powell
