Invisible Cities
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This was my first Calvino book, which next?
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Sam
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rated it 5 stars
Aug 23, 2012 06:43AM
This is one of only five books i have ever felt compelled to award five stars to on Goodreads. Calvino has certainly captured my imagination, but where do i go from here? Which of his other books would you recommend after reading Invisible Cities?
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Try his most famous, If On A WInter's Night A Traveller.I bet you'll view Literature in a different light after reading this one. Yes, hype, it's really that great.
Mr Palomar and The Castle Of Crossed Destinies are really really good as well.
I'll second If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. I also really enjoyed Italian Folktales, but Calvino isn't really the author of the stories, just the transcriber. Folktales is a book that is almost permanently on my bedside table.
I'd read Il visconte dimezzato. Calvino wrote it in the '50. I'd better read if on a winter's night a traveler and Mr Palomar later. They belong to a later period and his writing changed a big deal. All of them are great, but quite differnt.
I'm with Adriana--save Traveller for later. I'd move on to The Baron in the Trees and maybe keep Cosmicomics and T-zero (short stories) around. Traveller is one of my all time favorite novels, but it couldn't hurt to have a little more background in Calvino's writing and thinking before diving into it. I, however, am about due for Mr. Palomar :DETA: and if you haven't, you may want to read Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, one of Calvino's favorite books.
Read them all. In any order. They are all great, beautiful, enriching, amusing. Cosmicomics is a hoot. Six Memos for the Next Millenium is thoughtful and thought provoking.
My first taste of Calvino might have been (I don't remember for certain any more) The Road to San Giovanni. It contains one of my most favorite stories. Below is an excerpt about it:"Calvino's "La Poubelle Agréée"
"An essay from Italo Calvino’s book “The Road to San Giovanni.”
"‘La Poubelle Agréée’ is the colloquial name for the trash can derived from Monsieur Poubelle, Perfect of the Seine, who ordered in 1884 the use of refuse containers in the polluted streets of Paris. In this essay on the daily act of removing the detritus created by the very act of living, Calvino contemplates life, death and our civil role to society:
' …through this daily gesture I confirm the need to separate myself from a part of what was once mine, the slough or chrysalis or squeezed lemon of living, so that its substance might remain, so that tomorrow I can identify completely (without residues) with what I am and have. Only by throwing something away can I be sure that something of myself has not yet been thrown away and perhaps need not be thrown away now or in the future.'"
http://squanderless.com/blog/2009/09/...
Six Memos For The Next Millennium is another of my favorites. As you already know, Invisible Cities is magic, and the magic continues reread after reread. I stumbled on Difficult Loves early in my love affair with Calvino, and it was difficult. While I couldn't tell you exactly how, I know that book changed/added to my thinking about love forever. I also like The Uses of Literature , although I am not sure I have read all of it. At one time, my purchases of Calvino outstripped my time to read him, so several of the suggestions here (in others' posts) sit on my shelves waiting to delight and disturb.
Enjoy, Sam! And come back and tell us about what you found?
I ended up going for Mr. Palomar. I can't say exactly why but it didn't quite find my g-spot in the way that Invisible Cities did. There were some interesting parts to it but on the whole i'd have to say it was a little disappointing.
Try another. Trust me.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "I'll second If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. I also really enjoyed Italian Folktales, but Calvino isn't really the author of the stories, just the transcriber. Folktales is a book that is almost ..."It's true Calvino isn't the author, but he does select and edit as well as transcribe the tales into modern Italian (thence into English), so he is at least co-author. His excellent notes show that, like the Grimms re-tellings he so admired, he wasn't averse to tidying up and re-arranging, but at least he is honest about admitting when he does so; with the Grimms you have to be a literary scholar (I'm certainly not one!) to wade through the various editions and see how they constantly re-wrote tales to conform to their idealised 'urtexts'.
