Difficult Loves

by Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator), D.S. Crane-Ross (Translator)

This dazzling collection of stories follows the individual adventures of a varied cast of characters and masterfully illustrates Calvino's unique perspective and narrative gifts. As well as the eleven tales from his Difficult Loves collection this volume also includes Smog and A Plunge into Real Estate.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Italian Literature, Italy, 20th Century, European Literature, Literature

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 1993

About the author

Italo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. He was a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979).

His style is not easy to classify; much of his writing has an air reminiscent to that of fantastical fairy tales (Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics), although sometimes his writing is more "realistic" and in the scenic mode of observation (Difficult Loves, for example). Some of his writing has been called postmodern, reflecting on literature and the act of reading, while some has been labeled magical realist, others fables, others simply "modern". He wrote: "My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language."

Reviews

[Garima · Rating 5 out of 5]

People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.

You, Mr. Calvino! I’ll never forget how this book made me feel.

An immensely gifted writer, Calvino displayed his genius in this collection by plucking the ignored or trivial fragments of moments we experience at one point or another in our lives and weaved them together to present these gems of short stories. How vividly he captured the minute happenings around us and served us some riveting tales makes me revered in awe of him.

There is some confusion in regards to the edition of this book as I gathered from other reviews here that most of them have read the edition containing following four parts:

Riviera Stories, Wartime stories, Post-war stories, and Stories of Love and Loneliness.

Mine edition however has three sections namely:

Difficult loves (Stories of Love and Loneliness), Smog and A Plunge into Real Estate.

Difficult Loves is the highlight of this collection containing 11 short stories ranging between 4-10 pages and every single one of them wowed me by their brevity and impactful writing. And kindly don’t compare this book with Italo’s other works like If on a winters’ night…, or Invisible Cities. There is no wild imagination on display here but rather simple, accessible writing about simple people. With each story, Calvino gracefully unearths the most complicated emotions buried deep inside various characters and talks about loves that are difficult to embrace in the world driven by conventions and morals. A married woman desires to have a good time without her husband, a reader who wants to read, just read, a near-sighted man’s adventure to adjust and accept the inevitable changes a piece of accessory brought to his personality and consequently his life, a photographer who wants to capture every single moment in his camera, so on and so forth. The underlying theme remains the same. Love. Love for someone and for something and difficulty to proclaim that love and carrying on one’s life with or without such proclamation.

Smog revolves around a man who re-locates to a different city which has for long been victimized of industrial pollution and how he got used to the so-called polluted air around him and consequently made him see the difference between human beings he had known for life and those whom he had known for a short period of time and how in the process he started noticing things he had long ignored throughout his life. Calvino has beautifully captured the love story between two characters which again is not according to the conventional standards of love. A passage I particularly liked:

"In other words, I loved her. And I was unhappy. But how could she understood this unhappiness of mine? There are those who condemn themselves to the most gray, mediocre life because they have suffered some misfortune; but there are also those who do the same thing because their good fortune is greater than they feel they can sustain."

A Plunge into Real Estate depicts the story of a family who in order to better their economic conditions gets involved in business with a real estate agent and how Quinto, the protagonist started experiencing the implication of material world in his life. This story in my opinion is a generalized take on Italian Economy during 1950’s in general and bourgeois class in particular but again it’s an engaging tale that entails that society builds character and shapes our beliefs in the most unlikely circumstances.

Calvino lovingly carries his readers alongside him, and makes them experience the world through his words and makes them experience their own world through his creativity. After reading Difficult Loves, I can easily say that he’s one of the most versatile Writers I’ve read. An ideal companion, who understands you and makes you understand him by displaying virtuosity of a master story-teller.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my seventh Calvino, and how ever many other books of his I get to read in the future, I simply can't see anything topping the masterpiece that was 'Invisible Cities'. This collection of short stories does see Calvino in wonderful form though, but as we are dealing with 28 pieces in all, some were obviously better than others. It felt a bit like an album with a few tracks too many. But this is Calvino. Even a sub-par Calvino isn't worth pressing the skip button for. Calvino was one of the master tricksters of 20th century literature, an author who builds an imaginary stage of words around the reader, until the reader almost becomes the protagonist themselves. 'Difficult Loves' is split into four sections - 'Riviera Stories' is a series of nostalgic vignettes of childhood and adolescence set to backdrop of rural Italy and the magical richness of the Mediterranean. Enchanted Gardens, playing with toads, that sort of thing.

'Wartime Stories' sees Calvino focus on WW2. These were fatalistic evocations of the unglamorous and deadly aspects of life during wartime: foraging for food, crossing a minefield, running messages for the Resistance. One story tells of the worst shot in the village hunting down a German soldier in the forests, which felt like a mini neo-folktale, leading to Calvino to compile the Italian Folktales. 'Postwar Stories' features a black-market money changer whose wife is mistaken for a prostitute, whilst another briefly looks at the break in of a bakery which sees the perpetrators stuff there faces with various pastries.

Arguably, some of the best were saved until last, 'Stories of Love and Loneliness' written in the fifties, sees Calvino slowly began to break from realism for the richer depths of philosophy, myth and fantasy. These stores are all similarly titled 'Adventure of a... Including - Soldier, Bather, Photographer, and traveller. All explore similar ideas, with brief moments of universal comprehension and ignorance arising from everyday life. We see a man on train who meets a woman, yes just like in the movies, and another tells of the embarrassing moment when a female bather somehow manages to lose her swimsuit in the sea. Whoops!

Calvino is as interested in how we mean something as in what we mean. In his world, a ship can show the truth like a book, and a pair of glasses can block recognition better than a wall. From an adolescent child courting with gifts from natures treasure chest, to a modest clerk fresh from a one night stand, the characters of Difficult Loves scurry about their lives searching for human communication. More than 75% of the stories I felt were in the 4/5 bracket, along with two or three duds, so a four is about right.

[Vishal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calvino’s prose is among the best I’ve read. Effortless, fluid beauty. He infuses the most normal situations with a God-like grace and reminds us that we are to other humans is how we are as humans; how our interactions with others is a reflection of our quirks, prejudices, inadequacies, and passions.

The best thing about this collection of stories is how rewarding they are on repeated reads; initially dense prose gives way to light, colour and details of pretty awe-inspiring clarity. Although full of highlights, The adventure of the poet is a masterclass, where he expertly draws a contrast between the gritty, palpable details of ugliness, with the dreamlike, transitory and elusive expressions of beauty.

He makes us see why embracing the ugly side of nature is sometimes unavoidable, but also reminds us that human tenderness – although never permanent - is very much alive.

Che bella!

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calvino to the power of four : this volume includes not one, but four of the writer's short story collections, covering distinct periods of both the country and the author's development. We begin with childhood and innocence, youngsters basking in a golden glow of prewar idyllic rural / seaside existence ( Riviera Stories ) ; we are expelled from the Garden of Eden by the cruelties and savagery of the second world war ( Wartime Stories ) ; we suffer from hunger, cold, poverty with the rest of the Italian people in the aftermath of the conflict ( Postwar Stories ); finally we emerge back into the sunlight, and have time for leisure and love, but by now middle age comes with disillusionment and alienation ( Stories of Love and Loneliness)

I didn't check the publication dates, but the historical and personal developments that link and give continuity the individual episodes turn the collection into a sort of picarescque novel following a hero on a quest through life, changing maybe his name or his appearance, but remaining true to his inner nature, a personification of a whole nation through the masks worn by the different actors in the Commedia del Arte performed by Calvino for our entertainment. The structure, both a discrete puzzle and a unitary big picture - reminds me of other works by Calvino, especially the first book of his that I read : "Marcovaldo", by its focus on local colour over the more metaphysical content of later novels and stories.

The journey begins aptly with a young boy named Libereso, a simple gardener apprentice, who entices a kitchen maid called Maria-Nunziata into the secrets of his garden, gifting her with all the hidden wonders of the world. The reader experiences right from the start the beauty and the subversive nature of Calvino's art - the laughter, the wildness, the deft translation from the factual to the metaphorical narration. ( "Adam, One Afternoon" )

A golden glow of whimsical remembrance infuses the next stories in the first season, continuing the analogy with the biblical paradise ( The Enchanted Garden), moving then from green paths to the wonders of the blue world of the sea (Big Fish, Little Fish), and further capturing the moment when a boy meets a girl, or a woman. Adam continues his attempts at seduction with a small garden snake, with a multi-coloured fish, with a hunted rabbit or with a beehive, yet Calvino slowly, patiently introduces his social commentary into the narrative. The garden is surrounded by walls, protecting the property of the rich; a simple shepherd is made fun of during a family dinner by his employer; an older man hides in an abandoned garden from his past misdeeds, protected by wild bees; a hardworking family man is bitterly complaining about his sons who just want to sleep all day and gamble all night:

... everything was so beautiful: sharp bends in the path and high, curling eucalyptus leaves and patches of sky. But there was always the worrying thought that it was not their garden, and that they might be chased away at any moment.

The dark overtones of the later stories ease the transition into the war years, with characters now putting love for women on a second plane, as they play hide and seek in the mountains with brown shirts and nazis. Death has dominion over the garden, and fear, betrayal, hunger, revenge have all escaped from Pandorra's box. I found some of the wartime short stories slightly atypical of Calvino, a little too complimentary towards the style of Hemingway, but I guess the nature of the subject determines the tonality and the seriousness of the prose. Nevertheless, Calvino is a true Italian, and never forgets, even in the deepest despair, to laugh and to dance and to sing his troubles away. Animal Woods is my favorite episode here, and it showcases the inventivity, the bombastic, anarchist, often illegal response to authority figures of the Italian peasantry. The author here already experiments with the mythical, fairytale, ironical prose style that will characterize his later novels and stories.

The best is yet to come in the present volume, but in order to get there, the reader needs to pass through the dire years of post-war shortages and social unrest. The social commentary is in plain view now, Calvino using laughter and a baroque exuberance to underline the contrast between dreams and reality.
Theft in the Pastry Shop has both the thieves and the law enforcers succumb to the temptation of sugar in an irrepressible feeding frenzy. Dollars and the Demimondaine moves the orgy of the senses to a small tavern by the seaside where local black market money dealers try to liberate the hard currency from the fingers of onshore American sailors with the help of prostitudes, liberated women and even wives. Sleeping Like Dogs is a tragedy wrapped in the sense of humour of Laurel and Hardy, trying to fit a dozen people or more into a tight corner of a small railway station. Once again, the Italian spirit refuses to bow down and accept defeat, and one street smart grifter discovers how to make a profit even from the hands of the homeless. I also have a favorite here : Desire in November , describing the charity efforts made to clothe the poor for the coming winter. A local priest is distributing wool underwear:

Sometimes the line wound down past the corners of the stairs: widows in reduced circumstances who seldom left their attics, beggars with hacking coughs, dusty countrymen stamping about in hobnailed boots, disheveled youths - emmigrants from somewhere or other - who wore sandals in winter and raincoats in summer. Sometimes this slow and squalid stream spread right on down past the mezzanine floor and the glass doors of the Fabrizia's, the furriers. And the elegant women going to have their minks or astrakhan altered had to hug the bannisters to avoid brushing against the ragged crew.

Into this crowd comes Barbagallo, ready to scandalize the poor, the clergy, the clerks and the rich patrons indiscriminately with his nakedness and his rough jokes, bitterly complaining about his fate, yet more alive than everybody else in the city. He is obscene, irreverent of all authority, larger than life and he reminds me a lot of another colourful character named Italo Bombolini, the unlikely mayor of Santa Vittoria (played by Anthony Quinn in the movie version of the Robert Chrichton story):

... under the fringe of white hair falling over his forehead he had two big, merry blue eyes, and a broad, vinous, happy face

Eventually, the lean years pass, and the author turns his attention to the pursuit of love in the last part of the collection. The social commentary never fades completely into the background, but the mood is definitely more jocular and all the girls have an ironic, secretive glint in their eyes as they watch the mating dances of the male of the species. I guess these stories were written at a later period than the first three collections, because they show Calvino in top form, mixing real urban poetry with his signature exuberance of imagination and his barbed satire of the more foolish habits of his compatriots.

It so happened that Enrico Gnei, a clerk, spent a night with a beautiful lady. Coming out of her house, early, he felt the air and the colors of the spring morning open before him, cool and bracing and new, and it was as if he were walking to the sound of music.

And why should not clerks fall in love like anybody else, like a soldier trying to make the best of a tight train bench, or a salesman travelling all night to meet with his girlfriend in the weekend, or a nearsighted man whose eyes are open to the beauties walking up and down the street in the evening. The link between all these stories is the ultimate loneliness of each man, even in their most passionate impulses. Yes, the women are out there, and often they send clear signals of availability and interest, but most of the men treat love as a game to be played on a virtual screen inside their heads, loving their anticipation and their fantasies more than the flesh and blood sitting right next to them. The extreme case of this dissociation is in the episode of the Reader, not surprisingly from the author of "If On a Winter night A Traveller ...". Calvino blurs the dividing line between the words written on paper and the reality of sight and touch and smell, with hilarious results that nevertheless touch on fundamental issues of the way we relate to the world:

For some time Amedeo had tended to reduce his participation in active life to the minimum. Not that he didn't like action: on the contrary, love of action nourished his whole character, all his tastes; and yet, from one year to the next, the yearning to be someone who did things declined, declined, until he wondered if he had ever really harbored that yearning. His interest in action survived, however, in his pleasure in reading; his passion was always the narration of events, the stories, the tangle of human situations.

I have a favorite in the last collection too, and of course it is the story of the photographer, one that strikes extremely close to home in view of my own interest and history with a camera. The short story is almost an essay on the function of memory and of the nature of love as a figment of the imagination. I well remember my beginnings in the art with a basic full manual Russian camera and the smells of chemicals in the bathroom as I patiently waited for an image to be revealed on the blank piece of paper:

When spring comes, the city's inhabitants, by the hundreds of thousands, go out on Sundays with leather cases over their shoulders. And they photograph one another. They come back happy as hunters with bulging game bags; they spend days waiting, with sweet anxiety, to see the developed pictures (anxiety to which some add the subtle pleasure of alchemistic manipulations in the darkroom, forbidding any intrusion by members of the family, relishing the acid smell that is harsh to the nostrils). It is only when they have the photos before their eyes that they seem to take tangible posession of the day they spent, only then that the mountain stream, the movement of a child with his pail, the glint of the sun on the wife's legs take on an irrevocability of what has been and can no longer be doubted. Everything else can drown in the unreliable shadow of memory.

Antonino is a bachelor surrounded by married friends with children, grumpily accepting to be the button pusher for family portraits, while considering himself above such trivial pursuits: One of the first instinct of parents, after they have brought a child into the world, is to photograph it. complains Antonino. Pretty soon though he gets the photographing virus himself, buys an old fashioned glass plate wooden box and styles himself an artist: A few accidental successes had sufficed to give him nonchalance and assurance with view-finder and light meters. , an artist who still casts a critical eye at his friends banal subjects:

The minute you start saying something, 'Ah, how beautiful! We must photograph it!' you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it never existed, and that therefore, in order to really live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity; the second to madness.

The rant is particularly appropiate to the modern age where taking photos has become a trivial pursuit : selfies, food in restaurants, pets and overblown HDR landscapes are filling the internet servers with instant updates that in their accumulation almost confirm the prediction of Calvino that we are trying to prove that every second of our life is significant and worthy of immortality. Antonino still lives in an age when he has time to pause and reflect before pressing that remote control button:

Did he want to photograph dreams? This suspicion struck him dumb, hidden in that ostrich refuge of his with the bulb in his hand, like an idiot.

The short stories in "Difficult Loves" are like photographs of particular moments in the lives of the people of Italy before and after the war, but they are snapshots taken by a true artist, a man with the eye and the sensibility to recognize the universal beauty and sadness of the ordinary pursuits of ordinary people. Under his pen they become extraordinary and eternal. I am so glad I have still a few of his books waiting to be read and cherished.

[Arthur Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Difficult Loves collection is explendid! Beautiful writing, vivid descriptions, deep emotions, and unconventional situations as expected from Calvino. Most of the stories deal with love or lack thereof in many different forms. Enjoyable if you’re a fan.

Smog and A Plunge Into Real Estate felt lackluster and uninteresting. No idea if it’s the translation or they just weren’t his best pieces.

[Sal · Rating 4 out of 5]

And yet if I were permitted to replace my present state of uncertainty with that negative certainty, I would certainly refuse to make the exchange.

* * *

Once again I am amazed by Calvino's writing prowess. By far this is my favourite work of his. Comprised of 13 stories exploring love as a sublime and indescribable force, Difficult Loves takes the reader on a journey through the human experience of love and delves into its sensitive intricacies.

From its title, love is obviously the central theme of this collection, but the already beautiful concept is made even more transcendental by the 13 different lenses into it offered by the author. Whether it is the fleeting encounter of a boy and girl on a ski trip or the daily routine of a married couple, Calvino displays love in all of its glory - a glory that is only born through both its difficulties and joys, in being able to experience but unable to express its ineffability.

While all the tales are implicitly connected to the titular concept, the final story of the Motorist is the ultimate thematic tie. Perhaps this significance is underlined with the first-person narration of the story, compared to the third-person narration of every other tale. As the Motorist muses on his relationship with Y and Z, the remarks gradually adopt an editorialising tone, enlightening us to the basic principles underpinning every "adventure" in Difficult Loves. With such a narrative to close out the entire collection, Calvino successfully devises a powerful conclusion befitting this enchanting anthology, leaving the reader to meditate on and savour its profundity.

- - -

As a writer, Calvino's worlds full of magic are his trademark. However, Difficult Loves is not so magical as works like Invisible Cities; rather, its defining trait is a solid grounding in events of real life, though with a touch of Calvino-brand magic in the phenomenal narrations of love. The stories of Difficult Loves are not long pieces, yet all are inlaid with panging feelings and shocking relatability. Each of these tales is deeply human, down to the bare bones, and it is the inescapable flaws of humanity that make the stories all the more lovable. As we follow the characters in their "adventures", the anxiety and confusion they experience - coupled with excitement and affection - become mirrors for us to reflect on our own lives. With the range of characters spanning across all stages and walks of life, invariably we can find traces of ourselves within these protagonists. Calvino bestows an endearing mundanity on all of his characters, reaffirming their statures as figures of the commonfolk and establishes a firm link between tales of fiction and the roots of reality.

* * *

Of course, the price to pay is high, but we have to accept it: not to be able to distinguish ourselves from the many signals that pass along this road, each with a meaning of its own that remains hidden and indecipherable, because there is no longer anyone outside of here who is able to receive us and understand us.

* * *

For an idea as complex and tender as love itself, this book does an incredible job at examining all of its nuanced facets. There is almost nothing I dislike about the work.

I only wish that it was a little longer, with a few more stories of those difficult loves, full of inexplicable emotions tangled up in jumbled expressions that make them all the more precious.

[Ashley Cracknell · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Slice of life stories written with Calvino's trademark flowing prose. The Italian writes with a perception that makes me wonder if I have ever really looked at the world around me.

As usual, when reading Calvino I long to know what he would have made of our 21st Century. I felt this most keenly when reading The Adventure of a Photographer. The amateur photographer attempts to snap something elusive about life and love, to see the world only through photographs. Sound familiar? No doubt Calvino would have had plenty to say on our modern selfie culture.

[Nensi Seferi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MUST on your Summer Reading List !

[Sebastian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grabbed it from the library because of the author, but got a bit disappointed by the content.
From this collection of stories, I only found two from the first book interesting (The Photographer and the married couple with different schedules). All the others were sufficiently descriptive, but nothing made them stand out as stories.
The second section (“Fog”) was hard to finish; if the objective was to convey the boredom of the character working at that magazine, then it succeeded. The final section, focused on real estate, was easier to get through, with some interesting class conflicts, family problems, self identity, and an illustration of legality versus reality, yet nothing that makes it special.

[Prithu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. Intricate detailing brings stories to live.

[Sunset · Rating 2 out of 5]

Few of the stories worked for me. Most of them were bore. Too descriptive.

[AB Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read If on a winter's night a traveler over fifteen years ago, and immediately loved it. Yet until recently, I'd never picked up another Calvino book. Recently, during a random search of a local secondhand book shop, I came across this collection of early stories.

"It's Calvino," I thought. "I'm sure to like it."

And my, how correct I was! The short, breezy "adventure of a ____" series at the start of the book found me fully immersed in the interior concerns of each narrator; yet it was when I came to the adventure of a bather that I experienced the height of Calvino's mastery. It made me feel something. I laughed, experienced dread, and hoped for a calm and gentle resolution of the narrator's predicament. I even used the story as an example of how to elicit emotion from readers with some of my students.

The inclusion of "Smog" and "A plunge into real estate" were equally emotion inducing, and while I typically enjoy short story compilations, this collection satisfied me at an even stronger level. I never expected to enjoy it as much as I did, but I'm certainly glad I followed the whim of buying a text completely unknown to me.

5 stars. An easily accessible portrait of the master in his early period. Brilliant. I'll certainly be looking for more Calvino on my next trip to the bookshop.

[Sintija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally I’m done with this book. 😅 Calvino’s writing is, as always, very detailed and thorough. I really enjoyed the Adventures stories on the Difficult Loves part of the book. The way Calvino paints a picture with excellent details is amazing and something that’s truly unique to his writing. My favorite story was “Adventures of a Motorist” - the way Calvino wrote a full story on literally what seemed to be a few hour long action is mesmerising to me! It was very exciting to read this story - the web of thoughts of the main character, driving and thinking about the possibilities in the particular situation.

I have to admit that I skipped through the last story. The “Smog” story was interesting, but “A Plunge Into Real Estate” was boring to me.

Either way - this book definitely will not beat “Invisible Cities”, which I hold dearly among my all time favorite books I’ve read. But I’m glad I continued to explore Calvino’s writing. It’s always something different from how other writers can articulate their thoughts and put feelings into the text.

[Tareq Al-saleh · Rating 5 out of 5]

الحب الصعب وقصص أخرى (ترجمتي الشخصية للعنوان) للمؤلف الايطالي إيتالو كالفينو الكتاب من إهداء الغالي مناف الهاجري. أولا المؤلف يعتبر من القامات والاكثر ترجمة لمؤلفاته من الكتاب الايطاليين.
الكتاب باللغة الانجليزية عبارة عن مجموعة قصصية. المجموعة الاولى تحت عنوان الحب الصعب قصص قصيرة بل مواقف لشخصيات مختلفة وتصرفات عفوية تظهر البعد الانساني الذي نشهده يوميا وقد يصعب التعبير عنه في مواقف تتعلق بالحب والاعجاب للطرف الاخر. احد هذه القصص هي الحب الصعب مغامرات القارئ نرى خلالها الشد والجذب الشجاعة والتردد لشخصية القارئ الذي يحاول التركيز في قراءة رواية ومقاومة الاعجاب لفتاه في أحد الشواطئ.
وفي قصة أخرى تحت عنوان النمل الارجنتيني نرى زوجين ينتقلان مع ابنهم حديث الولادة الى قرية بحثا عن حياة جديدة لتكون المفاجاة بتغلغل النمل في المنطقة والمحاولات المستمرة لمحاربته والاستعانة بحيل واساليب الجيران في قصة خلاقة وفريدة من نوعها ونمط جديد من السرد.
في أحد المشاهد يعرض الجار على جاره اساليب مختلفة ومبيدات.. فيسأله هل أيا منها ينفع في مكافحة النمل.. فيجيب بالنفي.. وهكذا نرى حرب عقيمة لا ينفع معها شيئا. عمل ادبي متميز من الكلاسيكيات امنحه ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

[Shannon T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty, disarming prose with realistic characters. At time hilarious, at others critical of politics and nationalism - this collection was a shine of positivity during a negative time for me. Although it took me too long to finish it, I am glad I stuck through 'Smog' where I got stuck. It was an excellent novella. My favourite shorts were 'The Adventure of a Bather', '...of the Married Couple', and '...of a Motorist'.

[Nayeli Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 estrellas basándome solo en los once relatos del libro principal. Serían dos estrellas si contara Smog y A plunge into real state que me parecieron aburridísimos y me quedé dormida un par de veces. Al final, tuve que saltarme varias páginas de A plunge into real state porque ya quería dejar el libro. Lo cual es triste porque si hubiera escrito mi reseña antes, estaría comentando sobre lo fascinante que fueron las historias a pesar de ser cortitas.

[Renáta Opprecht · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ooo Italo Calvino I will always come back to you when I miss Italy! Even in the middle of lockdown I can feel like I'm there enjoying lazy, hot afternoons with the locals.

[Sarah Barnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved loved loved the difficult loves short stories, but wasn’t as into the longer unrelated ones. Thank you to the very kind bookshop owner in Florence who recced this to me!

[Afiqahkamel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4

[Crank · Rating 4 out of 5]

A true comedy

[Lillzebub · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first set of short stories in this collection deliver concentrated doses of hilarity, human disarray, and above all a deep longing for just a bit more time to feel life’s pleasures each day. These vingnettes were short and featured characters in pursuit of prolonging something—a feeling or something adjacent to happiness but more particular within the context of each story—almost to the point of complete and utter self destruction. Calvino works best in this arena of desire—impotent, nostalgic, disappointment-tinged.

The final three stories, much longer than the ones that make up the first half, felt less concise and thus less impactful. The added space did not deepen the reader’s understanding of the characters’ worlds. If anything, the added rumination and vacillation in prose and plot leaned too far into a character study of the lost, hopeless modern man so as to become tedious. However, Calvino’s longer stories did reach further towards the political. Perhaps he felt the need to pummel the nail on the head for some of his audience members to get the point…

[elisa (Taylor's version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

mi potete trovare nell'ultimo racconto

[Amalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Difficult Loves each short story is a testament to Calvino's skill in capturing humanity. Each vignette zooms in on single moments or experiences which each serve to demonstrate the follies, the fears and the heart of humans. The book opens with 'The Adventure of the Soldier' and Calvino traces each of the soldier's thoughts and actions that occur when a well-looking widow sits next to him on a train. How far does he dare let his hand roam? How can he do so discreetly? How is he to interpret the silence of the widow? Likewise the glee of the lover in 'The Adventures of a Traveller' exactly captures the energy, the restlessness and the slight sense of smug superiority of the seasoned traveller who has developed a rigorous routine to deal with a long wearisome journey through the night.
Difficult Loves is a truly delightful book full of observations that seem like snapshots from real life. Things may have changed from the 50s when most of these stories were written but most of us can probably still relate to the shame of discovering that you have lost the lower part of your bathing suit as you were frollicking about in the water.

[Lucynell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Guardian once called Italo Calvino "the greatest Italian writer of the twentieth century." It's written on the cover. I don't have much of an opinion because I haven't read much Italian literature, also this is my first Calvino book, but, based on the greater part of this collection, the Guardian's claim being true (if such things could actually be measured one way or another) would not surprise me at all. There's something Proustian here, insisting and meticulous, an almost mechanical shift of perspective, soundless, like Munro. A man cautiously brushes against a fellow traveller, a woman loses her bathing suit while swimming, a man becomes obsessed with photography. It doesn't sound much but before you know it you're halfway in. Occasionally, the man's brilliant visual incandescence, well, is not beaming all that strongly and that causes some slumping, alright, boredom. This mainly concerns the extra two novellas tucked at the end. That's it. Real good stuff here. Almost makes me wanna read more than my average ten pages from Proust's masterpiece.

[Bella Baghdasaryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Don't you ever get tired of reading?" she asked. "You could hardly be called good company! Don't you know that, with women, you're supposed to make conversation?" she added; her half smile was perhaps meant to be ironic, though to Amedeo, who at that moment would have paid anything rather than give up his novel, it seemed downright threatening.”

This is the second book by Calvino that I read after Invisible Cities. It has been years ago and I only remembered author’s beautiful writing style. I took this book as a beach reading and the collection of short stories fulfilled its purpose. The stories are very entertaining, often beautiful and poetic, often laugh-out-loud funny, and always insightful. There's no way to characterize all of the diverse situations and characters of the book, but they're all fascinating.


While I truly enjoyed 10 short stories and read them on one breath, but last two bigger pieces were not so easy to read and sometimes were even boring.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a very fantastic and playful quality to these short stories without crossing the line into fantasy or chick-lit genres. Even in the story about a little Italian boy sharpshooting a nazi soldier, the boy is playing a game. He is amazed at how the bullet makes things explodes. Italo Calvino finds humour in situations and characters that are not so pleasant or wholesome. For instance, there are couple of stories which are related to the war(World War II)taking place in Italy. There's even one about thieves who go into a shop to rob it, inadvertently discovering its delicious cakes and pastries. The hard edge of reality is often blunted by the curiosity of its characters in these stories. They are fed by a child-like awe and wonder toward the world and people around them.

[Saumya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although very different from my first experience of calvino, which was invisible cities, this book nevertheless carries the signature of the author. The layered typology of writing brings forth yet again a narrative that comes across as matter of fact but scattered. And then you discover this very thin almost transparent thread that binds the narrative together and you are left amazed! But all good things said, I will also take one star away because 'smog' and 'a plunge into real estate' dragged me down a bit. I wish difficult loves was let alone.

[Satyam Sai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I keep note of the year the books are published and this one was way back in the 50's but somehow the problems the pains, the oppressions concerning mankind remain the same throughout years, decades and centuries. Might be there is a hope in that. Who knows?

Very observant, detailed and witty prose as expected from Calvino but pales in comparison to the stylish, post modernish Winter Night or even the trippy nightmarish world of Cosmicomics.

[Aldeena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Calvino is a genius. And this collection is a worthy representation. The 'Difficult Loves' set of eleven stories is definitely the ace in the pack. With a common core, these tales differ vastly and yet form a wonderful whole. 'Smog' and 'A Plunge Into Real Estate' also hold their own. Quirky and delightful!

[Smriti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I realize now why Italo Calvino is one of the 'greats'. His ability to bring romance to even the most mundane things is extraordinaire.

If you ever had to learn how to paint a picture to tell a story, Italo Calvino is who you should look up to. With every sentence, the whole scene was set in front of me - fine, minute details helped me breathe life into it. Loved it.