The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (BR starts 18th April 2025)

[a.g.e. montagner]

Welcome everybody to our buddy read for The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. I proposed it here, following a nomination as part of a Mods' Selection last September.

The buddy read is set to start on the 18th of April (my birthday!) but that's mostly a way to tell each other that we'll be busy before that; feel free to begin earlier, especially considering that the stories can be read independently.

I've taken the liberty to use the original edition in the topic, as some of us will read the Italian text; that's in no way compulsory and everybody is welcome to grab the edition or translation that's available to them. Please note, however, that The Complete Cosmicomics is an expanded edition comprising the original Cosmicomics as well as t zero and other stories.

I don't expect we'll need spoiler tags, but you know the drill. What I do propose, since this is a collection of (several dozens) short stories, is that we write (perhaps in bold?) which stories we're going to comment.

[a.g.e. montagner]

I'll be the professor in this post. It is entirely inconsequential to your enjoyment of the book.

Italo Calvino is quite possibily the most important Italian writer post-WWII; he actually debuted with The Path to the Spiders' Nests, a novel about the Resistenza and an example of neorealismo — from which however he soon broke away with the publication of Our Ancestors: a trilogy of fantastical and often absurd tales set in a fictional Middle Ages. This phase of his work can perhaps best be described as focused on archetypes, as shown also in the collection of Italian Folktales.

The Cosmicomics, written in the sixties, belong to a phase in which Calvino seemed interested in the convergence of scientific research and fiction.
For reference, it might be relevant to note that Italian culture has traditionally been proudly humanistic (Italian students don't often place high in Maths tests) and didn't nurture a national sci-fi canon until recently.
This might also explain why the Comicomics are often mentioned in the same breath as Calvino's major works... but only abroad. Not to mention the fact the the Italian short story form is very successful... as an export.

[DivaDiane]

Thanks, Ale, for the brief biography!

[Cheryl L]

Yes! That's very helpful context.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Calvino is part of the school curriculum nationally, but I thought a bit of context might be useful for everybody else.

It is, however, incomplete, as I have not mentioned that he joined the Oulipo in 1968 and this prompted the recombinant phase of his writings in the seventies, e.g. Invisible Cities (a personal favourite, not least for its connection to Venice) and The Castle of Crossed Destinies, plus his late style as seen in If on a Winter's Night a Traveller.

He was very prolific in novels, short stories, even songs; he was a tireless essayist, critic and editor championing younger writers (Gianni Celati among them).

[Aga]

Checking in.

[a.g.e. montagner]

I've just taken an offer on Audible. It's my first time using the app and I'm still not clear whether content varies depending on location.

But I wanted to point out that audiobooks of both Le Cosmicomiche and Ti con zero in Italian are available for free.

[Olga]

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "I've just taken an offer on Audible. It's my first time using the app and I'm still not clear whether content varies depending on location.

But I wanted to point out that audiobooks of both [book..."

It does differ in different marketplaces. On audible.co.uk it's not included in subscription (just checked). :(

[CJ]

That's unfortunate, but as I understand from posts I've seen by authors, the availability of titles on KindleUnlimted or as part of an Audible sub inclusion is down to the publisher's agreement so it's not a surprise it's only a regional offer. That also means what's available now may not be available come April, or whenever we start, sadly. We will just have to keep an eye on it. I know Audible will tag a title as leaving a month in advance. KindleUnlimited usually has a 'read before they leave' notification via the Kindle app.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Speaking of which, Audible around here doesn't have much in the way of books I'm either reading or going to read, so I'm focusing on Le Cosmicomiche and I'm halfway through the original 12 stories.

[Olga]

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "Speaking of which, Audible around here doesn't have much in the way of books I'm either reading or going to read, so I'm focusing on Le Cosmicomiche and I'm halfway through the origi..."

You can also choose what marketplace/region to use. I have audible.co.uk membership, but I could also pay for audible.it.
I didn't realise that catalogue is that much different from region to region. I thought only the included titles differ.

[a.g.e. montagner]

As I said, I'm not familiar with the app and what you're saying is also news for me. I'll try to switch market, although I should probably finish Calvino first.

[Cynda]

Delightful! I will do my best to join in.

[a.g.e. montagner]

So far, what these stories remind me most of anything are the Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio), which were still in the author's future at the time of the Cosmicomics.

A bit of background.
It is the text of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures that Calvino was meant to give in the autumn of 1986; unfortunately he died of a stroke in September and didn't even complete the written text: the six memos are actually only five. Each lecture focuses on a quality that he considered important for the literature of the future. The first and most often quoted is "Leggerezza", which I think can be easily detected in the Cosmicomics (irony and levity were often ingredients of his style); although wikipedia mentions that the quality [lecture] best exemplified by these stories is "Esattezza", or exactitude.

Incidentally, the Norton Lectures are a wonderful rabbit hole in themselves: lecturers include T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Jorge Luis Borges...

[a.g.e. montagner]

(edit: I should say what I remember of the Six Memos...)

[DivaDiane]

I can get the Italian audio book from Audible UK, but not for free. I actually think when we first started talking about doing it it *was* on the plus list. Not anymore. But I can get it from the library in English. It was my plan to listen to the Italian and read in English.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Hi everybody,
sorry for missing the official starting date of this buddy read.
(to my defense, I've been on two separate trips in the span of a week, slept away from home six nights out of eight and had two working days in the middle of this bedlam).

I'm going to be, ehm, uncharacteristically late for this read; but I can offer a few considerations in the meantime.

I've listened to a good part of the early Cosmicomics on audiobook, which gave me at least one good piece of insight: the cryptic names are always spelled out (e.g. "ics elle ti acca elle ics"), with obvious hilarious results when an otherwise urgent invocation is pronounced "gi con di per doppia v alla n! gi con di per doppia v alla n!"
Incidentally, the keys for Q, W and F are close on the keyboard, making the name of the protagonist Qwfwq an early precursor to the various qwerty and io9* nerd puns.

Calvino was a graphomaniac.
His entire output was virtually in a state of constant revision, and he was endlessly thinking and writing about it, too. He was also among the preminent intellectuals of his time, and no opportunity for an interview was passed up by newspapers and magazines. In other words, there's plenty of material that gives insight into his workshop. Most Italian editions, mine included, borrow liberally from this material; I'd quote from it, but I guess it would be easier if somebody used an English edition.

One of the things you learn from Calvino is that, even at the time, he was aware that considering these pieces as 'fantascienza' was inappropriate, to a degree. I've mentioned in an earlier post that The Cosmicomics are often classified as sci-fi, especially in the anglosphere, and this allows the collection to enjoy the well-oiled machinery of genre fiction (not least, in our group here).
Except this can be called science fiction only in a very particular sense: every piece takes inspiration from a scientific fact, often a direct quote (Calvino was working with the knowledge of the time; it's my understanding that some of it has since become outdated); but what follows can better be described as an attempt to recapture the gosmogonic spirit of the early mythologies. They are stories about the (literal) origins rather than the future.

* https://gizmodo.com/io9

[Aga]

Thank you for all the information!

I’m waaaay behind my schedule, because I’m healing from a sports injury and it took a lot of my time. But I should be able to start this week. This is going to be a big reading project for me, because I’m reading it in Italian, English and Polish.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Woah, that's going to be interesting. Let us know!
Hope your injury's doing better.
I'll also be late, as I said. But feel free to start without me, everybody.

[DivaDiane]

I haven’t started it either. I was kind of waiting for everyone else to jump in, plus, like Aga, I’m very behind. Planning on listening in Italian and reading in English, maybe.

[Aga]

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "Woah, that's going to be interesting. Let us know!
Hope your injury's doing better.
I'll also be late, as I said. But feel free to start without me, everybody."
Thank you!
It’s better than last week, but I wish it was healing faster.

[DivaDiane]

Do go easy on yourself, Aga!

[CJ]

I tried to start this last month but just couldn't find the time or energy. I am thinking about trying again this month. So I may be joining you after I finish a couple of other titles. It's definitely been on my mind, as I'm very interested in it.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Yo CJ, welcome any time.
As I've already mentioned, this is a collection of stories, so there's no need to be in for the long haul and no rush to finish.

[Aga]

I have finished the first story (in Italian, English and Polish). It was interesting and fairy taleish. Something as surreal from a scientific fact.

It’s so interesting to compare translations.

[a.g.e. montagner]

I've hardly touched a book in more than a month because of work, and I've cheerfully blown past every timepost I'd set for myself.

On the other hand, it shouldn't be hard to catch up on a collection of short stories that are on the short and cheerful side. I've read three stories in as many days, and I can see myself keeping up the pace even as a side gig to other readings.

Without repeating what has already been written, here are a few takeaways. I'm going to use spoiler tags this once, though I find them hardly necessary: the narrative isn't plot-driven.

La distanza dalla Luna
(view spoiler)[
First story of this earliest collection of Cosmicomics, and possibly the most famous of all.
It establishes a working method: a quote from a scientific text, to which our protagonist Qwfwq replies directly, as in conversation. His stance immediately sets a humourous tone for what follows: he's always been there, across the entire history of the universe (and even earlier, as will be pointed out in another story). And yet this is also one of the bittersweet stories, mingling irony with longing. Having already used the language of physical attraction, even if applied to celestial bodies, is it surprising that it moves in the direction of sexual longing? The ending offers a reason for the perennial identification of of the Moon with unrequited love: the example is set by Qwfwq's gaze in search of the woman he loved.
(hide spoiler)]

[a.g.e. montagner]

Several details, such as the scene with sea life floating in mid-air in the moonlit landscape, also lend a poetic side to the story, often while being quite funny at the same time.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Sul far del giorno
(view spoiler)[
Interesting in showing that Calvino's focus was often (overtly in these stories, but less prominently also elsewhere in his production) on relations and dynamics. This interest in formalism became more prominent during the Oulipo years, during which his fiction was criticised for being too dry.
Here, however, the comic element often saves the day. One of the intended comic levels seems to me the contrast between the grandness of the cosmic scenario and the pettiness of the characters, as well as the inherent absurdity, for instance, of their family relationships: how can Qfwfq have a grandmother, if he's always existed?
Here especially, the characters seem taken right out of a daily strip; which, if I remember correctly, was one of the meanings Calvino attributed to the title Cosmicomics.
(hide spoiler)]

Un segno nello spazio
(view spoiler)[
For all intents and purposes, a lesson in semiotics camouflaged as fiction, and including some fairly advanced observations, for instance, on the obsolescence of style. Unabashedly postmodern.
(hide spoiler)]

Tutto in un punto
(view spoiler)[
Again, hilarious.
Here Calvino also takes a jab, almost casually, at racism and anti-immigration rhetoric, which is incidentally more poignant now than in 1960s Italy. And, obviously, everybody pines for Mrs. Ph(i)Nkₒ.
Question: is "tagliatelle" translated in other languages? This is one of several elements of Italian culture in the stories which might not be as immediately recognisable to a foreign readership.
(hide spoiler)]

[Kaia]

I still plan to join this chat, but the book had been checked out from my library system for several months (there is only one copy available, unfortunately). I saw today that it has been returned, so I put a hold on it. It may still take a little while for it to arrive (mailing between libraries in our system can be very slow), but I’m excited to get started!

[CJ]

Yeah, I don't live in a major city but the mail between our library branches is so slow. I love our librarians, they have a lot of work to do, so I try to be patient, lol.

For people subbing to Kindle Unlimited and/or Audible, this is still available under those subscriptions.

I plan to start this next month. I let myself get swamped this month between my usual projects, Pride month and the new combat summer prompts.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Join whenever suits you, of course.
I've been at large for far too long myself.

I've started taking notes because in my experience it's the best aid to memory, especially as regards a short story collection.

[a.g.e. montagner]

Senza colori
(view spoiler)[
Another love story, and one so nuanced that I wonder whether it has biographical or autobiographical elements. I'll take the liberty of quoting this one paragraph:

"How could we understand each other? Nothing in the world that lay before our eyes was sufficient to express what we felt for each other, but while I was in a fury to wrest unknown vibrations from things, she wanted to reduce everything to the colourless beyond of their ultimate substance".

The final scene clearly harks back to the myth of Eurydice.
(hide spoiler)]

Giochi senza fine
(view spoiler)[
Interestingly, the hypothesis on which the story is based has since been refuted; I read about it a few months ago in The Cosmic Landscape by Leonard Susskind. Apparently this patently absurd theory was viable until a few decades ago.
Calvino, however, is quick to jump in even more absurd directions. He has Qfwfq and his opponent Pfwfp play marbles (which would have been immediately familiar to his readership from their childhood), but with hydrogen atoms and in Einsteinian space. Otherwise they behave like children everywhere, making up rules as they go to suit their own play.
(hide spoiler)]

Lo zio acquatico
(view spoiler)[
Again, great-uncle N’ba N’ga seems too realistic not to be based on a real person, or perhaps a composite of several. Who doesn't have an old relative who behaves quite like him? And the same can be said about Lll, who foreshadows cetaceans.
Admirable how the author seamlessly weaves this prototype into the theme of the story, so that N’ba N’ga argues against terrestrial life rather than, say, emigrating to the big city in postwar Italy.
(edit: I was to quick to post)
This is the first instance, if I'm not mistaken, in which the characters are explicitly described as having animal form (apart from Hnw turning into a horse). While it was kinda clear implicitly that in the earlier stories they couldn't have had human form, even as they are described walking, grasping &c., Ayl in the story "Without Colours" and the whole crew in "The Distance of the Moon" are definitely human-shaped. It would be pointless to look for consistency in these stories, but still I find it interesting to see how Calvino plays with such elements.
Also, another fling for Qfwfq.
(hide spoiler)]

[Aga]

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "Several details, such as the scene with sea life floating in mid-air in the moonlit landscape, also lend a poetic side to the story, often while being quite funny at the same time."
Poetic and funny at the same moment is the feeling I have reading this book most of the time.

[Kaia]

My library copy finally arrived! I’m going to try to read at least one story per day. So far, I’ve read the first two (“The Distance of the Moon” and “At Daybreak” in my English translation).

(view spoiler)[I thought it was interesting that both stories have a female character who is lost to the rest - the wife in the first story, who stays on the moon, and the sister in the second story, who is absorbed into the earth). I love the description of the in-between area between the moon and the earth in the first story. It seemed like it would a lot of fun to travel to the moon and back, but the moon butter did not sound appetizing at all!

I wondered if “The Distance to the Moon” was an inspiration for the Pixar short film where the two older men and a child row out and take a ladder up to the moon to sweep away the lighted stars covering its surface. I found “At Daybreak” to not be as engaging as a story, but it still had lovely descriptions. (hide spoiler)]

[a.g.e. montagner]

Is it translated as butter? I was wondering. The original is ricotta, which as far as I know has no translation and is ultimately quite different from butter.
One of many instances I was mentioning above, of cultural references that would be immediately obvious to an Italian readership but not necessarily to a foreign one.

I also wanted to mention that Calvino seems to have inherited a taste for lists from Borges, but his are very idiosincratic, putting together not just incompatible items but different categories altogether:

"vegetal juices, tadpoles, bitumen, lentils, honey, starch crystals, sturgeon eggs, moulds, pollens, gelatinous matter, worms, resins, pepper, mineral salts, combustion residue [...] fingernails and cartilage, bolts, sea horses, nuts and peduncles, shards of crockery, fish-hooks, at times even a comb".

I read a story a day too, for a while. I'm currently reading other things but will resume later on; I enjoy having a story collection as a sideline. There's a couple of stories I've read but not commented yet.

[Kaia]

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "Is it translated as butter? I was wondering. The original is ricotta, which as far as I know has no translation and is ultimately quite different from butter.
One of many instances I was mentionin..."

Actually, I misremembered it, and the translation is actually milk, not butter. (Honestly, I think milk is worse.) The milk is being described as thick, though, so I think my brain interpreted it as butter and I didn't double-check the text before my original post.

I think ricotta makes much more sense, and I wondered why they didn't keep it since I think most English readers know what ricotta is. I checked the translation dates in my book, and it looks like about half of the stories (including "The Distance to the Moon") were translated in the late 60s, so I guess at that time maybe ricotta was less commonly known to English readers. 1/4 of the stories were translated in the mid 1990s, and the last 1/4 in 2005. It makes me curious if I will notice a difference between the ones translated more recently and the ones translated in the 1960s.

[a.g.e. montagner]

It seems that the original Cosmicomics were translated right away and the later stories much more recently.
Incidentally, this might explain why there was hype for The Complete Cosmicomics in recent decades: it's a relatively new book in English.

[CBRetriever]

it's for sale on amazon.com in Kindle version for $3.99 today only

[Kaia]

Ok, I've already fallen behind in my goal of reading one story per day, but I did at least finish one more yesterday, and I'll try to get to at least one more sometime today.

"A Sign in Space" - (view spoiler)[This one amused me. It reminded me a little of the philosophical discussions around things versus ideas of things, and also, as a.g.e. pointed out above, about how things go in and out of style. The competition with and vexations of Kgwgk in the sign making / destroying process were also funny. (hide spoiler)]

[Kaia]

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "Sul far del giorno

Interesting in showing that Calvino's focus was often (overtly in these stories, but less prominently also elsewhere in his production) on relations and dynamics. This interest..."

As to your question for “Tutto in un punto”: (view spoiler)[ in my translated into English version, tagliatelle is kept as is and not translated into something else. I also thought this story was very relevant for our world today. (hide spoiler)]

[Kaia]

“Without Colors”: (view spoiler)[This was a sad story. I agree with a.g.e.’s comments above - it feels like Calvino may be writing about a past relationship. Even though everyone else seems to be so happy to have a world full of color, I feel sad for Ayl that she has to hide away inside the earth now that the grey time has ended. (hide spoiler)]

[a.g.e. montagner]

Without Colors

I can't help feeling that, here and elsewhere, Calvino was writing about something else as well; often more than one thing at once. In this case, not just the paradigm shift from monochrome to colours, but also Ayl's habit of searching for the "ultimate substance" of things, a sort of Platonic ideal, while everyone else, including our protagonist, is fascinated by the new.
This seems to point in the direction of the fine arts. I think a parallel could be easily drawn to the painter Giorgio Morandi, for instance.

[a.g.e. montagner]

(and perhaps the author is also trolling colour tv?)