هرمیت در پاریس

by Italo Calvino, Mohammad Hossein Vaghef (Translator)

هرمیت در پاریس را اتوبیوگرافی ایتالو کالوینو برشمرده‌اند، منتها نه یک خودزندگی‌نامه‌ی مرسوم، بلکه قطعه‏قطعه که بعدِ مرگش کنار هم گذاشته شد تا بخش‌هایی از زندگی و نگاهِ او را به جهان روشن‌تر کند. به همین خاطر کتاب نوزده بخش دارد که در آن هم مثلاً پاسخ‌‌های کالوینو را می‌خوانیم به یک پرسش‌نامه‌ی عادی، هم خاطراتِ جذابِ سفرش به امریکا را. هم مقاله‌ی درخشانش درباره‌ی موسولینی و برخوردِ او با این دیکتاتور سیاه‌پوش را، هم روایتش را از استالین و درگیری‌های نسلش. کتابِ هرمیت در پاریس مملو از تکه‌های گوناگون فکر و زیستنِ این نویسنده‌ی پیشروِ ایتالیایی ا‌ست. او که درباره‌ی تورین و دغدغه‌هایش می‌نویسد و در جایی دیگر از رابطه‌ی نویسنده با شهرش روایت می‌کند، به‏ناگاه سراغِ نیویورک می‌رود و آن‌جا را می‌ستاید و درعین‌حال پل می‌زند به سال‌های جوانی‌اش در ایتالیا. کتاب را همسرِ کالوینو تدوین کرده است و در آن بسیاری از اعتراف‌ها و احساس‌های نویسنده را به جهانی که در برش گرفته می‌توان مشاهده کرد. نویسنده‌ی بارونِ درخت‌نشین در این یادداشت‌ها، مقالات و تک‌نگاری‌ها بی‌واسطه با مخاطبانش سخن گفته و نشان داده که چگونه زیسته، چگونه نگاه کرده و حتا چگونه به سوی مرگ گام برداشته است.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Italy, Autobiography, Italian Literature, Memoir, France

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

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

[Sawsan · Rating 3 out of 5]

نصوص متفرقة تحكي سيرة ذاتية شبه مكتملة للكاتب الايطالي إيتالو كالفينو
مقالات وحوارات, مذكرات ويوميات جمعتها زوجة كالفينو ونشرتها بعد وفاته
موضوعات متنوعة غير مرتبة ومكررة أحيانا تعرض أجزاء من حياته الخاصة والعامة
نشأته وانتماءاته في ظل أجواء مضطربة في أوروبا قبل وبعد الحرب العالمية الثانية
آراؤه الفكرية والأدبية والسياسية, أحاديث عن السياسة والشيوعية ومقاومة الفاشية
عن الإبداع والأدباء والكتابة, علاقته بالمدن وذكريات رحلاته لأمريكا وفرنسا

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the opening piece, barely three pages long, Calvino pays tribute to Cesare Pavese. The Italian writer who was the first person to read all of Calvino's first writings, the one who encouraged him to write a novel, and the one who introduced him to the city of Turin and the publishing world. Without Pavese there may not have been a Calvino. This super short essay really was quite moving as I do have a soft spot for Pavese. After that, I found the other eighteen interviews, self-portraits, journals and scraps a bit of a mixed bag. His American diary 1959-1960,which was easily the longest piece and probably my least favourite, sees a sort of snobbery shine through, particularly in regards to the beatniks; though generally throughout he doesn't come across as judgemental, while his wartime experiences with the Partisans, the fascist Italy of his childhood and his snippet of Parisian life being other highlights. Seeing as it's a posthumous work, I wonder whether Calvino would have been happy about it. But I think his widow, Esther, who writes a preface and who put it all together, realized that for fans it's the closest thing we can get to a full-on autobiography, to get more of a sense of who this genius of a writer really was. I have to take his greatest and most dazzling works of fiction into account here, and this book was simply nowhere near as enjoyable, so it's a 3/5. I would rather have read a whole book of him writing about Pavese and Turin to be honest.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of pieces eschews the literary. It is also rather depressing, more on that later. Divided between a six month trip to the US in 1959-60 and a lengthy exposition on Calvino’s political development Hermit in Paris doesn't dodge punches nor does it whitewash.

Calvino's American endeavor is an odd affair. He appears most aware of alcohol and homosexuals. The size of automobiles frightens him, until he lusts to drive. He winds up at a "beatnik" party in San Francisco where he runs into Graham Greene. Wait, what? This struck me as extremely unlikely, though Calvino glosses over the affair by bemoaning that the only attractive women were lesbians. Oh well. There is a solid meditation on race and the South but the previous hijinks left a smear on such.

The pieces are collected from over 25 years and there is a great deal of repetition as a result. Cesare Pavese is readily acknowledged as Calvino's guiding presence. That said, Calvino remained in the Communist Party until Budapest '56 which sounds strange to my fat ass in 2013. I wasn't there. Calvino addresses this situation at length in essay about whether he was a Stalinist while in the party(he was).

I read this over two days, reflecting on how Calvino’s contacts in the American literary world have all vanished from favor. His political ideas he later found juvenile and dangerous. This resonated with me. I recently celebrated my 20th Anniversary at my job which strikes me as absurd on occasion. My birthday is also on the horizon which historically leaves metrics and confessions equally combative and painful.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otobiyografik notların oluşturduğu bir anlatı kitabı. Aslında I. Calvino’nun biyografisi de denebilir. Bu nedenle adı bence hiç uymuyor kitaba, içindeki kısa bir bölümün adı kitaba neden verilmiş anlamadım, biyografi anlamında katkısı sınırlı kısa bir metin ve Paris bile anlatılmıyor. Daha önce okuduğum “San Giovanni Yolu” isimli kitaptaki bilgiler burada da karşıma çıktı. Aslında özellikle doğumu, ailesi ve çocukluğuna ait bilgiler kitapta birkaç kez karşınıza çıkıyor, ama rahatsız olmadım.

Kitabın başında 30 sayfalık bir kronolojik biyografisi var Calvino’nun, bu bölümü iki İtalyan yazar birlikte düzenlemişler. Sonra eşi Esther’in sunuşuyla esas kitap başlıyor. 100 sayfaya yakın 3 Kasım 1959-7 Mart 1960 tarihleri arasında yazmış olduğu mektup ve güncelerden oluşan “Amerika Güncesi” başlıklı bölüm ile kitap devam ediyor. Çok ilginç bir bölüm burası, 6 aylık Amerika seyahatinde yazılmış. Amerika özellikle New York hayranlığını açıkça dile getiriyor yazar. Amerika’nın o döneme ait politik, sosyal yaşam, ekonomik ve kültürel durumunu pek hoş bir uslupla anlatıyor. Yolculuk kitaplarının edebiyatta yararlı bir biçimi olduğunu vurgulaması da yazdıklarını önemsediğini gösteriyor. Bu bölümde anne ve babasının Kemal Atatürk ve Gandhi’ye ayrıca Rus bolşeviklerine hayranlığından ve kendisinin de özellikle annesinden çok etkilendiğinden bahsetmesi de ilginç. Bunun yanında yazdıklarında çok sık ingilizce kelime kullanması şaşırtıcı geldi bana, yabancı hayranlığı gibi sanki. Bir de eşcinselliğe karşı muhafazakar bir dil kullanmasını da biraz şaşırarak karşıladım. Bu bölümlerde çevirmenin lezbiyenliği ısrarla “sevici” olarak çevirmesinden de çok rahatsız oldum. Keza “scala” için de hep “ıskala” demesi sinir bozucu.

Sonraki 100 sayfa ise yaptığı çeşitli söyleşilere ayrılmış. Bu bölümde “Gençlik Dönemi Siyasal Özyaşamöyküsü” ve “Ben de Stalinci Oldum mu ?” başlıklı anlatılar enfes. Calvino’nun politik düşüncesini, politikadan kopuşunu, edebiyatla ilişkisini, antifaşist mücadelesini ve başka birçok konuyu anlatan metinler bu bölümde. Mussolini’yi bir de Calvino’nun kaleminden okuyun derim. Kitaba adını veren bölüm “Pars’te Münzevi” ise silik bir anlatım.

Kendi tarzını anlatırken E. Vittorini’nin tanımından yararlanıyor; “masal yüklü bir gerçekçilik ile gerçek yüklü bir masalcılık”. Calvino kendisini romancı değil öykücü olarak tanımlıyor. Onun tarzından çok farklı yazıyor olmasına rağmen C. Pavese’ye ustam diyen yazarın neden böyle dediğini bu kitapta da çözemedim. Italo Calvino severlerin veya onu yakından tanımak isteyenlerin okuması gereken bir kitap.

[Gabril · Rating 4 out of 5]

“L’ironia avverte che quello che scrivo va letto con un’aria un po’ sospesa, di discreta leggerezza. E siccome mi capita talvolta di usare altri toni di voce, le cose che contano sono soprattutto quelle che dico con ironia. […] L’ironia avverte sempre del rovescio della medaglia”.

Continua il viaggio in e con Calvino.
Questi dodici scritti, definiti non a torto pagine autobiografiche, sono stati pubblicati postumi e curati da Esther “Chichita”Calvino, la formidabile moglie dello scrittore.
Tutti accendono una luce inedita sulla personalità, sul talento e sulla visione originale di sé e del mondo caratteristica di questo autore così atipico, così geniale.
Su ciascuna di queste pagine aleggia quella ventata di ironia, quel sorriso volutamente distaccato che solo può condurre a una visione più ampia e lungimirante di ciascun oggetto di osservazione.
Che tratti della propria biografia, del viaggio in America, del mood intellettuale del suo tempo; che risponda a domande sulla letteratura, sulla storia e la politica; che racconti che cosa significa in concreto essere uno scrittore; che parli di New York, di Torino o di Parigi, Calvino è sempre leggero (al modo in cui lui intende la leggerezza) e sempre godibile.

Inevitabile che il suo stesso lieve sorriso si imprima pagina dopo pagina anche sulla nostra faccia.😏

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is excellent. The title of the book is an unusual and deceptive choice, Hermit In Paris is a very short piece, and not anywhere as interesting as American Diary 1959 -1960, which is superb, comprising half the book.

The thirteen page essay 'The Duce's Portraits' is worth the price of the book alone.
Calvino "spent the first twenty years of my life with Mussolini's face always in view, in the sense that his portrait was hung in every classroom, as well as in every public building or office."
The essay concentrates on only official images, "since no others circulated then: official images in portraits, statues, films made by his Luce Cinema Institute (the cinema newsreels of the time), illustrated newspapers."

"I don't know if that was the last time that Mussolini wore a top hat; it could have been, because by now, having secured the Church's consensus, he could start putting Italy into uniform. This shift in Fascist style ( at least as it might have been perceived in the provinces) I would date to the tenth anniversary of the Fascist revolution, 1932."

"Another necessary component was of course the prohibition of any criticism or sarcasm."

"Achilles Starace (1889 - 1945). Hard-line secretary of the Fascist party 1931-39, he was obsessed with external trappings such as Fascist uniforms, the Roman salute and the use of 'Voi' instead of 'Lei'. He was shot by partisans and his body was hung up alongside Mussolini's in Piazzale Loreto in Milan in April 1945."

Behind the Success
"It took me a long time to realize that what counts is not your intention but what you actually achieve."

Contents

Stranger in Turin
The Writer and the City
Questionnaire, 1956
American Diary 1959 - 1960
The Cloven Communism
Political Autobiography of a Young Man
A Letter in Two Versions
Objective Biographical Notice
Hermit in Paris
Where I Was on 25th April 1945
Dialect
The Situation in 1978
Was I a Stalinist Too?
The Summer of '56
The Duce's Portraits
Behind the Success
I Would Like to Be Mercutio . . .
My City Is New York
Interview with Maria Corti

I have to give him five stars for his honesty.
I have more to say on these various essays.

Hermit In Paris was a sweet find, for the cost of $3, an ex-library discard from a travellers bookshelf in the Tourist Information Office at Emerald, Queensland. The book was already on my TRL.

[Mercurialgem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this read, especially the Questionnaire 1956, American Diary 1959-1960, Behind the Success and Interview with Maria Corti. The Political Autobiography of a Young Man lost me at times but it was still interesting. In the American Diary section it was divided into many subjects: The Actor’s Studio, How a Big Bookshop Works, A Beatnik Party, The Chinese New Year, TV Dinners, The Most Important Young Writers in America, Random House, Orion Publishers, Wall Street and so on. Some of his opinions or observations on such topics were very short, a small paragraph, sometimes longer. Also, at times his opinion of America and Americans wasn’t too high: “…and you realize that 95 per cent of America is a country of ugliness, oppressiveness and sameness, in short of relentless monotony” (Calvino 87) or “but these young girls are surely as far from Dostoevsky as the moon” (Calvino 42). I’m sure there was some truth in what he said, at times, but I just liked it because it gave me an idea of what was happening or what it would have been liked to be there at that time. His favorite place was New York hands down. Reading the interviews, were they ask him about his work or influences, was highly interesting. =)

[Hameed Younis · Rating 2 out of 5]

لو كان كالفينو على قيد الحياة لرفض –يقيناً- أن يصدر هذا الكتاب باسمه، فهو فارغ المحتوى جداً، ولا يستطيع المرء ان يطيقه إلا ان كان مهووساً ومريضاً بكالفينو، وأنا والحمد لله لست كذلك
الترجمة متقنة جداً

[Marzi Motlagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

بالاخره تموم شد😌
میدونید چجور کتابیه؟ یه سفرنامه ی متفاوت و جالب. کالوینو خاطرات آمریکا رفتنش رو با جزییات جذابی نوشته اما اون جزییات بناها و فرهنگ نیست!! بلکه از آدم ها نوشته، از اتفاقاتی که توی اون روزا تو امریکا در جریان بوده (مثل مبارزات ضد نژادپرستی به رهبری مارتین لوترکینگ) و وضعیت اقتصادی و اجتماعی و سیاسی آمریکا رو از دیدگاه خودش نوشته و تحلیل کرده.
در مجموع کتابش اطلاعات عمومی خیلی خوبی بهتون میده. اما حیف که سالهاست چاپ نمیشه و منم کاملا اتفاقی تو یه کتابفروشی قدیمی پیداش کردم.
خلاصه اینکه راضی ام از خوندنش. یکم به خاطر تعدد اسامی خسته کننده میشه ولی در کل کتاب خوبیه.

تا یادم نرفته به اینم اشاره کنم که ترجمه عالی بود❤

[Tubi(Sera McFly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Italo Calvino’yu daha yakından tanımak için biçilmiş kaftan olabilir bu kitaptaki denemeler. Paris’te Münzevi başlığı yazarın olgunluk çağında Paris’te yaşamasına ve bununla ilgili bir yazısına gönderme. Bunun dışında, Amerika yolculuğundan izlenimleri, komünist geçmişi, yazar olarak kabul görme sürecine dair yazılarını ve röportajlarını okumak da ufuk açıyor.

Düşsel ve deneysel kurguculuğuyla daha çok bilinse de (Sandık Gözlemcisi gibi yapıtları hariç), Calvino’nun özellikle Amerika gezisine ya da siyasilere dair sosyokültürel izlenimlerinin ne kadar isabetli olduğu görülüyor. Sosyal gerçekçi kurgu denemeleri reddedilmese nasıl bir Calvino portresi çıkardı ortaya merak ettim. Sık sık yer değiştiren bir yazarın düşsel kentler ortaya çıkarması da şaşırtıcı değil elbette.

Bu bir öz yaşam öyküsü değil, yazarın çeşitli yazılarının ve söyleşilerinin bir derlemesi. Çeviride “olduydu, geçtiydi, gittiydi” gibi kullanımlar olmasa daha akıcı olurmuş.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hoped that by reading this I could better understand some of the ideas behind the incredible words he writes in “Invisible Cities.” Throughout “Hermit in Paris” there are passages about Calvino’s development as a writer and as a political activist. The most enlightening passages are ones in which he ponders both of these developments in relation to place:

“To stay in one place you stay away from it. In Paris, watching Italy. What sort of a trick is this? Among the Invisible Cities there is one on stilts, and its inhabitants watch their own absence from on high. Maybe to understand who I am a I have to observe a point where I could be but am not” (189).

Reflecting on his writing while traveling in the United States:

“Travel books are a useful, modest and yet self-contained way of writing literature. ...and in such books you can express something that goes beyond the description of places one has seen, a relationship between yourself and reality, a process of knowledge” (125).

He continues:

“Everyone will say that [travel:] distracts you from that horizon of set objects that constitute your own poetic world, it disperses that absorbed concentration which is a condition (one of the conditions) conducive to literary creation. But in the end, even if it is a dispersal, what does it matter? In human terms, it is better to travel than to stay at home. First of all live, and then philosophize and write” (126).

Passages about his political development are filled with unfamiliar references (I’m sure it would have been interesting to a reader familiar with Italian political history). But Calvino’s grappling with the reality of Stalinism as a challenge to his commitment to Communism is honest and enlightening. He writes of both the attraction to and trappings of Stalinism:

“one had to exclude many things from one’s horizon; Communism was a narrow funnel one had to pas through in order to discover an unlimited universe on the other side....Stalinism possessed the power and the limitations of all great simplifications. The vision for the world that it took into consideration was very compressed and schematic, but inside there were choices and one could struggle to make one’s choices prevail, choices which allowed back into play many values which one thought excluded (196).

And, as a final condemnation: “Stalinism appeared to establish the primacy of practice over ideological principles, but in fact it twisted ideology in order to ideologize something that functioned only through force” (197).

The tension Calvino feels within Stalinism is palpable when he thinks about his political views, again, in relation to place: “whenever I happened to travel to some Socialist country, I felt profoundly uncomfortable, foreign, hostile. But when the train brought me back to Italy, whenever I crossed back over the border, I would ask myself: but here, in Italy, in this Italy, what else could I be but a Communist?” (203).

What an illuminating an honest reflection on political thinking! Calvino, in Italy, the place in which he’s been a part of struggles, of movement, in a place which he intimately knows, is committed to the movement that he knows to make sense. How difficult, disillusioning, heartbreaking, it must be to see twisted incarnations of that movement in other places. Having grown up in a post-1989 world, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate the difficult position democratic socialists inhabited between capitalism and authoritarian socialism. Calvino’s words dramatized that dilemma for me.

[دلال نصر الله · Rating 5 out of 5]

تقول زوجة كالفينو إستر في مقدمة الكتاب:

"وبعد مرور عدة سنوات، وجت ملفا عنوانه مقتطفات من سيرة ذاتية يضم مجموعة نصوصا وعليها ملاحظات كتبها عن تواريخ نشرها لأول مرة. من الصعب ولعل من المستحيل فهم كيف كان كالفينو سيقدم هذه الأعمال، والتي تركها بترتيب زمني ...
كتوثيق سيرة ذاتية – وليس كقطعة أدبية – يبدو لي جوهريا بالتأكيد. كلوحة ذاتية، نعا أكثر تلقائية ومباشرة ننملكها.
سنس هذه المجموعة إذن، قد يكون: للتأثير على العلاقة أقرب بين الكاتب وقرائه، وليعمقها من خلال هذه الكتابات. صدق كالفينو أن "ما يهم هو من نحن، والطريقة التي نعمق بها علاقتنا مع العالم ومع الآخرين، علاقة يمكن أن تكون إحدى كل من الحب لكل الموجودات والرغبة بتنرفسوم."
إيستر كالفينو




اقتباسات من الكتاب:

أن المال يُنجِب المال، وهذا ترويج لعبادة المال المتأصّلة في أمريكا: وإذا حدث مصادفة أن نشأ جيل لا يضع المال فوق أي اعتبار، فهذا يعني أن أمريكا ستتلاشى كالدّخان.



عندما ترى كيف يعيش هؤلاء البروفيسوارات – الطالح والصالح منهم – في هذه الجنة على الأرض وترى المال الهائل الذي تخصصه الجامعة للبحث العلمي، فيجب أن تخبر نفسك أن هذا يعني موت أرواحهم




إنها أرض ملعونة لسبب غامض، ولهذا من الطبيعي أنهم ما زالوا يصنعون القنبلة الذرية سراً في هذه الصحراء المخصصة لهذا الغرض، ويقال إنه توجد هنا قوى قادرة على تدمير الأرض كلها. لقد اكتشف اليورانيوم هنا تحديداً، وهو أمل هذه المنطقة الوحيد في الثراء.


لن أنسى هذا اليوم ما حييت. لقد رأيت ما هي العنصرية، ورأيتها مقبولة كأحد قوانين المجتمع الأساسية. لقد حضرت أولى صراعات الجنوبيين السود والتي انتهت بهزيمتهم.


لعلي لا أملك موهبة تكوين علاقة شخصية مع الأماكن، فإحدى قدمي بين السحاب والأخرى في مدينة ما. ومكتبي يشبه الجزيرة.


ولربما يكون سبب إعجابي بالميترو هو عشقي لعوالم تحت الأرض: وأحب روايتَيْن للكاتب جول فيرن: الهندي الأسود، ورحلة إلى منتصف الأرض. وقد يكون التخفي هو سبب إعجابي بالميترو.



. أظن أن الكُتّاب يفقدون الكثير عندما يظهرون بشخصهم. ففي الأيام السالفات، كان الكتاب المشهورون جداً مجهولين تماماً بالنسبة لقرائهم، مجرد اسم على كتاب، مما منحهم هالة من الغموض الاستثنائي




لذا يمكنني القول إن باريس... حسناً، إن باريس عمل موسوعي ضخم، مدينة يمكنك الرجوع إليها كموسوعة؛ ومهما كانت المعلومة التي تبحث عنها فإنها ستعطيك معلومات كاملة، قائمة أثرى من أي معلومات تعطيك إياها أي مدينة أخرى


من نصائح كالفينو للكتاب:
في كل تجربة يجب أن أبحث عن المادة، وهي ما يبقى في النهاية. هنا درس يستفاد منه: تخلص من الكثير كي تحتفظ بما هو جوهري.


إن الأبواب التي أبقيها مفتوحة هي أبواب الخيال، إنه سرد لحكايات حية ومبتكرة، كما سأبقي على الكتابات التأملية التي تصبح فيها المقالة والحكاية شيئاً واحداً.



أستطيع أن أقول إني قد حاولت كتابة تاريخ ثورة موسوليني من خلال تتبع صوره الشخصية.


لا تنتمي كتبي إلى قائمة الكتب الأكثر مبيعاً، تلك الكتب التي يباع منها آلاف النسخ بمجرد صدورها ثم تنسى في السنة التالية. وأكبر رضا لي هو أن أرى كتبي معاد طبعها كل عام، بعضها يطبع منه خمسة عشر ألف نسخة في كل مرة.



أظنني قد تمكنت من الحفاظ على قُرائي، حتى لو كتبت شيئاً جديداً. لقد عودت قرائي على توقع الجديد مني: هم يعلمون أن الوصفات التي تم طهيها لا ترضيني، وأني لا أستمتع أبداً إن كررت نفسي.


لن أكتب شيئاً جيداً، ما لم أختبر شيئاً من المرح أثناء كتابته، وهذا يعني القيام بأشياء جديدة بالنسبة لي. وما الكتابة بغير هذه الطريقة إلا ملل وانشغال انعزالي.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd mostly read Calvino's novels and short stories in the past, but these documents offer an (even more?) intriguing look into his life and experiences. Being mid-century and Italian there are some experiences that Calvino underwent, like helping the resistance to the Fascists, that make him stand out. I loved his observations about the United States from his trip there, in a diary that makes up most of this volume. Ordinarily this kind of thing would be for the die hard Calvino nerds, but there is something in the perspective on writing, translating, and living in different societies that is excellent enough to warrant the read.

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

decent travelogue in the US; good WWII memoir materials; plenty of insight into his writerly process and theoretical orientation. nice to see a fellow leftist who is uncomfortable with the eastern bloc but takes it seriously.

[أسماء عوض · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتاب عبارة قصاصات من مقالات واجزاء من لقاءات لم تنشر بالإضافة ليوميات لرحلة كاتبنا في الولايات المتحدة ولعلها احد اهم وأروع اجزاء الكتاب والأطول أيضاً

[Faye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermit in Paris is not really a memoir or autobiography; more it is a collection of diary entries, letters, essays and interviews that help to build a picture of Italo Calvino. At least half of the book is taken up with Calvino's American journey, in which he travelled all around the country, from New York to Texas with lots of stop-offs in-between. It was also interesting to read his perspective of the violent clashes and racial tensions in the South in the early 1960s. He recalls being horrified by the scenes he witnessed where white thugs laughed and joked with each other while they taunted black church goers leaving their church; blocking the paths of young women and spitting on the ground in front of them.
My favourite chapter was the title essay 'Hermit in Paris.' Calvino lived there with his wife and daughter in later years, despite still owning a home in Italy which he would commute to and from. His observations about the city, the traffic and his daily routine were insightful and entertaining to read. This is an essay I look forward to re-reading in the future.

Overall rating: 4/5 stars

[Camelia Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have never heard of Italo Calvino before I stumble upon this little collection in a secondhand bookshop, attracted by the title. Italo Calvino was a prolific Italian writer with an interesting history, an anti-fascist fighter in World War II and later a member of Italian Communist Party. He stayed in the party until after Budapest '56. The collection consists of two bigger pieces and several smaller ones. American Diary, written during his tour of the US between 1959 and 1960, is one of the bigger pieces. It's a window into a turbulent part of American history from the eyes of an outsider and an ex-communist. His observation is sharp.

Race and social mobility in the Midwest:

"What four or five years ago was an elegant suburbs is now in the hands of the well-off, black middle classes. The Jews have left their poor ghettos because now in Cleveland they are all more or less rich, and their previous houses have now all become slums for blacks. The churches remain - I mean the buildings - the synagogues in the ex-Jewish areas have now turned into Baptist churches for blacks, but they have retained the candelabra on the windows and the archivolts. The movement of races from one area to another in these big cities is constant: where the Italians once were now you find Hungarians, and so on. The Puerto ricans have not yet reached the Midwest, they are still concentrated in New York, but here in the last few years there has been a huge amount of Mexican immigrations. But the curious feature is that now on the bottom rung of the immigration ladder are the internal migrants, the poor whites from Virginia who come to work up here in the factories, and since they were the last to arrive, they find themselves below the blacks, and their racism and hatred of the anti-segregationist Yankees intensifies. "

White middle-class in American South:

"What comes over is an impression of a country in uniform, these middle-class families marching in formation all wearing stetsons and fringed jackets, proudly displaying their practicality and anti-intellectualism which has developed into their mythology, fanaticism, and alarming belligerence. "

"This famous Southern aristocracy gives me the impression of being uniquely stupid in its continual harking back to the glories of the Confederacy; this Confederate patriotism which survives intact after a century, as though they were talking of things from their youth, in the tone of someone who is confident you share their emotions, is something which is more unbearable than ridiculous "

He visited Martin Luther King in Montgomery and witnessed an anti-black protest in front of a black church:

"The pavements were swarming with whites, mostly poor whites who are the worst racists, ready to use their fists, young hooligans working in teams (their organization, which is only barely clandestine, is the KKK), but also comfortable middle-class people, families with children, all there to watch and shout slogans and obscenities against the blacks locked inside the church, plus of curse dozens of amateur photographers taking shots of such unusual Sunday events.The crowd's attitude varied between derision, as though there were watching monkeys asking for civil rights (genuine derision, from people who never thought the blacks could get such ideas in their heads), to hatred, cries of provocation, crow-like sounds made by young thugs. "

"The most admirable ones are the black girls: they come down the road in twos or threes, and those thugs spit on the ground before their feet, standing n the middle of the pavement and forcing the girls to zigzag past them, shouting abuse at them and making as though to trip them up, and the black girls continue to chat among themselves, never do they move in such a way as to suggest that they want to avoid them, never do they alter their route when they see them blocking their path, as though they were used to these scenes right from birth."


However, Italo Calvino is no friend to feminism. He complained several times that beautiful women he encountered turned out to be lesbians, and he called one woman "misandry" and the example of American pessimism.

A visit to IBM factory: "The workers were certainly highly qualified, and there was a very smooth rhythm of work; many woman, all of them fat and ugly (beautiful women here, as in Italian cities, are now only to be found in certain social strata)."

"...anyway this woman, who was young and Jewish but with a real feeling for nature." why but?

In an article called The Summer of '56, he explained how he left the communist party in 1956. An idealist's eventual disillusionment: "We Italian Communists were schizophrenic. Yes, I really think that is the correct term. One side of our minds was and wanted to be a witness to the truth, avenging the wrongs suffered by the weak and oppressed, and defending justice against every abuse. The other side justified those wrongs, the abuses, the tyrannies of the party, Stalin, all in the name of the Cause. Schizophrenic. Split."

The title essay, Hermit in Paris, is a rumination of self: "But perhaps I do not have the talent to establish personal relations with place, I always stay half in the clouds, with jut one foot in the city. My desk is a bit like an island: it could just as well be in some other country as here. And besides, cities are turning into one single city, a single endless city where the differences which once characterized each of them are disappearing. "

My favorite quote is this: "When I find myself in an environment where I can enjoy the illusion of being invisible, I am really happy."

[Giordana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mi sento un poco confusa, perchè se il libro si chiama “eremita a Parigi” mi immagino di leggere qualcosa in merito a Calvino e Parigi.
Mi immagino il ruolo della città di Parigi nella vita di Calvino.

Bene iniziamo dicendo che il capitolo che riguarda giustamente questo tema, si deve aspettare la pagina 175. Poichè prima parla di tutti i suoi diari americani e il ruolo di Calvino durante la guerra mondiale e il suo approccio.

Si parla degli stati uniti il 90% del libro.
Parigi è la sua “ casa di campagna” , dove cercava nei momenti di solitaria. Non voleva un posto isolato, ma cercava giusto una città dove potersi sentire trasparente.
Non penso che sia cosi significate questa informazione da dover intitolarlo cosi.

“ Eremita a New York” sarebbe stato più coerente.

[NOLaBookish aka blue-collared mind · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in Italy for the Terra Madre conference that Slow Food holds every two years (as books go, the Slow Food folks have a couple of good ones to read, especially Carlo Petrini's book about founding this wonderful international movement), and while walking MILES through Turin in the evening, I came across a bookstore that had a floor of English titles, and of course, a entire shelf of Calvino, who adopted Turin as his Italian homebase before moving to Paris.
So, when in Rome....

I have read a few of Calvino's books and enjoyed them-"Why Read the Classics?", "Six Memos for the Millenium" (wonderful lectures he never gave) and in fiction, Invisible Cities.
As a Cuban-born Italian with scientist parents, growing up in Facist Italy, he grew up with World Wars and watching the American Century really take off, which made for a fascinating mind and a skepticism that is necessary for any essayist. This book was put together after he died and is wonderful. The descriptions of America (like of the smelly Beats) are pinpoint and yet all of it is poignant as his letters back to friends show his loneliness but also his practicality of a staff member of publishing company. I think anyone that starts with this and then move on to his fiction will find a new favorite.

[Ahmed Saleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

هدف هذه المجموعة المكونة من إثني عشر عنصراً هو إنشاء علاقة أقرب لايتالو كالڤينو ،، بمعنى آخر الدخول الى عالمه الخاص وأظن تماماً بأنها نجحت في ذلك . أوافق كالڤينو الرأي تماماً في إيمانه الشخصي بأنه " ما يهم هو من نحن ، والطريقة التي نعزز بها علاقتنا مع العالم والآخرين ، وهي علاقة حب بيننا وبين كل الموجودات ورغبتنا بتطورها " .

الكتابة وتطوير الأسلوب الكتابي ، هو السؤال الذي يجيب عليه كالڤينو بتواضع وصبر كبيرين ، يبقى هذا الكتاب نظرة عميقة إلى عالم كالڤينو الداخلي بدايةً من آراءه السياسية وزيارته لأمريكا ونهايةً بالوقت الذي توقف فيه عن الكتابة رجوعاً إلى الداخل .

[Lazarus P Badpenny Esq · Rating 4 out of 5]

By revisiting various interviews and diary entries this collection of biographical flotsam and jetsam builds through repetition and the gradual accretion of detail a not wholly unexpected but appropriately postmodern portrait of the Italian author, Italo Cavino, as a writer who was simultaneously both playful and deeply sincere.

[Shakiba Bahrami · Rating 4 out of 5]

به نام خدا. مترجم واقعاً اعصابم رو خرد کرد. از سانسوری که بهش اعتراف کرده، می‌گذرم(هرچند... مگه منِ خواننده مسخره‌ی توام:))) نمی‌خواستم بخونم، نمی‌خوندم!)، تازه داشتم از کتاب لذت می‌بردم که دیدم gay رو همجنس‌باز ترجمه کرده:))) البته کتاب، چاپ ۸۴ئه اگر اشتباه نکنم ولی یکی دو جا هم نبود.
کالوینو یه سفر به آمریکا داشته و سخنرانی و نشست برگزار کرده اونجا، همینطور آدم‌های مهمی رو دیده. اوایل کتاب راجع به خود آمریکا و آب‌وهوا و... حرف میزنه ولی اواخر کتاب واقعاً جالب میشه.
کالوینو دقیقاً کمی بعد از اولین نافرمانی مدنی سیاه‌پوست‌ها می‌ره آمریکا! چیزهایی که کالوینو از وضعیت یهودیان و سیاه‌پوست‌های آمریکای اون زمان(که اصلاً هم دور نیست) میگه، واقعاً دردناکه. من درست یاد وضعیت امروز خودمون افتادم. اقلیت‌های دینی که اجازه تحصیل ندارن، مهاجرین قانونی که حق هیچی ندارن، زنان که مدام با آزار وحوش ج.ا روبرو هستن و... .
اگه به خود کالوینو، نوشته‌هاش، تاریخ آمریکا، سفرنامه و... علاقه دارید، این کتاب (با مترجم دیگه) رو از دست ندید.
به قول معروف، حتی چرک‌نویس‌های کالوینو هم خوندنی‌اند:)
Also he's such a handsome man*_*

[Pete Marchetto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whether to four-star, whether to three? Three falls short of a recommendation and, in the end, Hermit in Paris doesn't quite cut it. It's too much a mess from which enlightening snippets need to be extracted; too incoherent; too much the 'lucky bag'.

Calvino is a writer who has fascinated me since my youth, and one I've not visited for way too long. Perhaps this is a work which would have read better without so much distance on my part... but then again, perhaps not. It's as if, in its compilation, someone were given access to an attic to dust off artefacts and make a collection representative of the owner. The portrait ends up blurred, and not a little skewed.

We have Calvino answering for himself in several interviews; the odd thumbnail sketch for some purpose or another; and more extended sections which serve some greater or lesser purpose in giving us the man. Much of the first half of the book is dominated by a series of letters Calvino wrote to his publisher during a trip to America from 1959 to 1960. There was a sense of reading personal emails between friends, such privileged access giving us perhaps a little too much of Calvino as a womaniser for example when, in reality, that's the sort of thing we may find ourselves writing about to friends when not anticipating broader public consumption of our words. That's a criticism that extends out through the entire work. Context is needed. Without it, some of the portraiture becomes skewed; too much focus on this, too little on that. It doesn't help that context is only provided at the end of each section once we've read it, necessitating a revisit in recollection to get a sense of what it really is we've just read.

It's no surprise reading the work that Calvino had a great deal of difficulty penning a formal autobiography. Again and again in the book, Calvino stresses the need for distance from the subject if he is to write about it successfully, and in writing himself we may feel he stood way too far back, theorising about himself as an astronomer may theorise about some distant galaxy captured as fuzz on a photograph. Indeed, we may even be given to wonder whether Calvino, in considering himself, ends up extracting too much detail from too little evidence while missing the big picture altogether.

Some sections are more straightforward and revelatory, such as his thoughts - made comfortable by the distance of time - upon his youthful communism, and it would be wrong to say these are rare in the work as a whole. However, in the end it's all too random. There are diamonds here, but they're not laid out for us. We have to mine for them.

A work to be recommended for what the reader may learn about Calvino, yes; but equally not to be recommended for what he or she may feel has been missed along the way. Here an arm to the smallest scar; there a leg with every hair accounted for; but never the man as a whole.

[Tom Lichtenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Calvino is one of my favorite writers. I love the way he was always on to something new, never repeated himself but always explored and adventured and expanded his horizons. This collection of interviews and autobiographical notes is interesting in many ways, including his impressions of America circa 1960, his political involvements, and his views on his peers and the literature of his time. The juxtapositions of all these aspects make for a curious portrait, a more-angled one than you usually get from a book about a writer. And Calvino was not your typical author - not in his background, his output or his multi-faceted legacy as a spinner of absurdist fantasies, a truly experimental novelist, and a collector of regional folktales. He was also an editor for a prominent Italian publisher, and a journalist for a legendary communist newspaper. He came around in such an intense era as well, as a youth in Fascist Italy, a communist in the age of Stalinism (when adherents found themselves forced to choose between "the revolution and truth", and an international celebrity of sorts in the swinging Sixties. I found his outlook on literature in general to be far more intellectual and academic than I expected, but as an American I am always surprised by the more thoughtful European ways of looking at such things. The book is fragmentary and scattered, and reads like a random collection of notes, which is more or less what it is. Anyone expecting to find a thorough biography or treatment will not find one here, but for a variety of glimpses of the person behind the books, it's really quite worthwhile.

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Appena ho letto Parigi nel titolo e ancora prima che i miei occhi diventassero a cuoricino, ho capito che avrei dovuto leggere questo libro.
E' un viaggio nell'universo di Calvino, nel mondo di Calvino, nella sua adolescenza a San Remo con il padre agronomo e la madre sua assistente, fino alla laurea in lettere a Torino, la sua città d'adozione all'amicizia con Cesare Pavese da cui ha attinto. Il Calvino americano con gli stralci del suo diario, i suoi viaggi a Boston, New York, Los Angeles, ecc; le interviste in cui parla dei suoi primi romanzi e infine Parigi, una città che lo ha assorbito, ma nella quale si sente estraneo.
Insomma, i mille volti dell'uomo e dello scrittore che abbiamo imparato ad amare e apprezzare.

[Wafaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

اعجبتني بعض المحطات في الكتاب خاصة تلك المتعلقة بالجانب السياسي لأن فيه تأريخا إنسانيا لحقبة ما قبل و بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية.
أعجبتني طريقة كالفينو في الرد على محاوريه فهو لا يتحرى الظهور بشكل منمق بل بشكل صادق و هذا أمر مهم بالنسبة لأي كاتب.
أكثر ما أعيبه على ترجمة دار أثر هو كثرة الأخطاء الطباعية مما يخرج القارئ من الجو الذي يخلقه مع الكتاب، لكن يبقى مجهود المترجمة يستلزم منا الشكر و الامتنان.
هي تجربتي الأولى مع كالفينو رغم انها جاءت مشتتة ككتابه هذا لكنها ممتعة و أكيد لن تكون الأخيرة لأن لدي الكثير من الفضول لأتعرف عليه من خلال أعماله الأدبية.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three things about this book that I really liked: (1) Calvino's diary about traveling in the Deep South of America in the late 1950s and his disgust with the racism he observed. (2) His memories of Italian history and politics of 1930s-1950s. First-person accounts really are the best way to learn history in my opinion. (3) His answers to interview questions about being a writer, struggling with ideas. I like that genre.

Makes me want to read more Calvino.

[Tatjana Dzambazova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love him even more after reading his biography. Great observations about USA, and oh man, totally on the same page about NYC.

[SR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completely fascinating.

[MohammadJavad Talebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

دو سه تا مصاحبه‌ی خوب، یه زندگی‌نامه‌ی خود نوشت خوندنی، یه روایت پرتره‌های پیشوا که من هنوز بهترین روایت عکسی بوده که خواندم‌اش.