Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The three long stories that comprise this book at first appear to have been slapped together without much concern for whether they work well with one another.Not only were they written at different points in Calvino'scareer -- "The Watcher" is from 1963, "Smog" from 1958 and "The ArgentineAnt" from 1952, but they don't even get the continuity that a singletranslator might have been able to provide.That's why it's so surprisingthat a common theme in these works emerges anyway -- namely, that existenceis futile and farcical and yet also must be cherished because, in the end,what else is there?
The protagonists of these stories are allseeking ways to somehow make the futility bearable or even meaningful. "The Watcher" portrays Amerigo Ormea, an election observer assigned to apolling place that is actually a mental institution.Amerigo's long-heldpolitical convictions are, if not wavering, then at least punch-drunk fromhaving been slapped around so much.The momentous changes once foreseen byhim have not materialized, and as a result he is trying to believe thatchange is a gradual and even mundane process, a matter of "doing as much asyou could, day by day." Calvino uses the asylum and its inhabitants ametaphor for democratic society and its odd creatures.In doing so hedisplays a keen talent for showing up grand arguments like whetherdemocracy is viable for the absurd squabbles they may be at their core --like whether a ballot sheet has been properly folded, or whether an armlessman's vote counts if someone has to go into the voting booth with him. Amerigo struggles to accept that such grotesque banality is the very stuffof democracy.This struggle is sometimes involving and insightful andsometimes not.The force of the story is somewhat blunted by too manyphilosophical musings on Calvino's part.He may mean to send up thediehard's tendency toward philosophical musings, but they are droning andoften repetitive and not particularly exciting to read.Nevertheless, "TheWatcher" has a lot to offer.In the other two stories, the maincharacters also must persevere in the face of circumstances they cannotcontrol."Smog" demonstrates an acute awareness of environmental perilthat seems somewhat ahead of its time.But as in "The Watcher," Calvino'schief concern is how humanity copes.The main character has just moved tothe city and is overwhelmed by its filth.He washes his hands compulsivelyas he observes how the urbanites deal with a dirty fog that is intensifyingits grip on the city.One man simply makes the filth a part of himself,living and breathing it with hardly a thought.Another, a factory ownerand the worst polluter in the city, tries to redeem himself by funding "TheInstitute for the Purification of the Urban Atmosphere in IndustrialCenters."A worker in one of his factories "didn't try to evade all thesmoky gray around us, but to transform it into a moral value, an innercriterion."
Smog is substituted by ants in "The Argentine Ant." A young couple moves into a new home only to find that it -- and the homesof all their neighbors -- infested with millions of the unstoppableinsects.The young husband goes neighbor to neighbor in search of asolution.One has a garageful of insecticides and chemicals, and achuckling anecdote explaining the failure of each one.Another man rigselaborate deathtraps out of string and gasoline.The woman who rents thehouses out simply denies that the ants are a problem even as they bite heron the buttocks and crawl up her back.The town regularly sends out anexterminator, but the residents are convinced he is actually feeding theants as a way of keeping his job.In both "Smog" and "The Argentine Ant,"no one thinks to simply leave.There seems to be a tacit agreement amongthem that moving would only exchange one problem for another.Calvino'scharacters are inescapably grounded where they find themselves, learning tolive with that which they find unbearable.
This book providesample evidence of Calvino's skill and vision.It is definitely aworthwhile read.
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Product Description:
The three long stories in this volume show the range and virtuosity of Italy's most imaginative writer. "Like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino dreams perfect dreams for us" (John Updike, New Yorker).Translated by William Weaver and Archibald Colquhoun. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
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