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The Written World and the Unwritten World: Collected Non-Fiction
'An indispensable writer ... Calvino, possesses the power of seeing into the deepest recesses of human minds and then bringing their dreams to life' Salman RushdieThe difference between life and literature; the good intentions of holiday reading; the avante-garde; the fate of the novel; the fantastical; the art of these are just some of the ideas in The Written World and the Unwritten World . A collection of essays, articles, interviews, correspondence, notes and other occasional pieces on writing, reading and interpreting books, this work gives us new insight into Italo Calvino's expansive, curious and generous mind.Translated by Ann Goldstein
369 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
112 people are currently reading
1633 people want to read
About the author
Italo Calvino
559 books9,023 followersItalo 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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
May 27, 2025
Interessante raccolta in volume di una quarantina di pezzi d'autore, si va dal saggio vero e proprio agli articoli e alle recensioni. Viene coperto l' arco temporale 1952-1985, chiude il volume la postfazione di Mario Barenghi, intitolata "L'idea di letteratura di Calvino".
Gli scritti sono accorpati in sezioni tematiche, una prima riguarda la lettura, la scrittura e la traduzione, seguono quella sull'editoria e quella sul fantastico, chiude una su scienza, storia e antropologia. Il tutto rispecchia la produzione letteraria dell'autore, come è facile intuire, la sua versatilità, la gamma dei suoi interessi, il suo stesso percorso letterario.
L'idea che si matura alla fine della lettura è quella di una voce calda e sincera capace di riflettere e far riflettere sul processo creativo che accompagna la scrittura e sulla realtà che essa richiama, insomma il rapporto fra mondo scritto e mondo non scritto.
Volume da tenere sempre a portata di mano.
Gli scritti sono accorpati in sezioni tematiche, una prima riguarda la lettura, la scrittura e la traduzione, seguono quella sull'editoria e quella sul fantastico, chiude una su scienza, storia e antropologia. Il tutto rispecchia la produzione letteraria dell'autore, come è facile intuire, la sua versatilità, la gamma dei suoi interessi, il suo stesso percorso letterario.
L'idea che si matura alla fine della lettura è quella di una voce calda e sincera capace di riflettere e far riflettere sul processo creativo che accompagna la scrittura e sulla realtà che essa richiama, insomma il rapporto fra mondo scritto e mondo non scritto.
Volume da tenere sempre a portata di mano.
February 7, 2023
I adore Italo Calvino! His use of language is always gorgeous, so I'm definitely interested in his thoughts on the written world. And this collection of essays manages to be both erudite and approachable--not an easy tightrope to walk. I believe both things could be said of Calvino himself, and his voice and personality shine throughout the collection.
Given the statement above, accolades are also due to celebrated translator, Ann Goldstein, who has previously been entrusted with the work of Elena Ferrante--among many others.
As for the essays themselves, I was mistaken in thinking that this was advice on the craft of writing. Oh, sure, there's some of that in there, but it's really not the emphasis. The essays, I think, accurately portray the breadth and depth of Mr. Calvino's interests and experience. I loved, for interest, hearing him discuss Pinocchio--of course a foundational influence on any Italian writer--and is obvious in Calvino's case.
Some of the essays were somewhat scholarly, and I didn't know all of the works referenced. But, Mr. Calvino was a different nationality, generation, and gender than me. I really enjoyed the aspects of these essays that exposed me to a very different frame of reference and perspective. And I enjoyed his ruminations on his own work, and that of others. Time spent with Italo Calvino is always joyful and well-spent!
Given the statement above, accolades are also due to celebrated translator, Ann Goldstein, who has previously been entrusted with the work of Elena Ferrante--among many others.
As for the essays themselves, I was mistaken in thinking that this was advice on the craft of writing. Oh, sure, there's some of that in there, but it's really not the emphasis. The essays, I think, accurately portray the breadth and depth of Mr. Calvino's interests and experience. I loved, for interest, hearing him discuss Pinocchio--of course a foundational influence on any Italian writer--and is obvious in Calvino's case.
Some of the essays were somewhat scholarly, and I didn't know all of the works referenced. But, Mr. Calvino was a different nationality, generation, and gender than me. I really enjoyed the aspects of these essays that exposed me to a very different frame of reference and perspective. And I enjoyed his ruminations on his own work, and that of others. Time spent with Italo Calvino is always joyful and well-spent!
December 11, 2018
"La nostra civiltà si basa sulla molteplicità dei libri; la verità si trova solo inseguendo la dalle pagine d'un volume a quelle d'un altro volume, come una farfalla dalle ali variegate che si nutre di linguaggi diversi, di confronti, di contraddizioni."
October 12, 2022
The Written World and the Unwritten World, by Italo Calvino and translated by Ann Goldstein, is a wonderful collection of what they are collectively calling essays. Some are more like notes and commentary, but it doesn't matter, this is a fascinating glimpse into Calvino's thinking.
There are very few readers who will have read all of the works he mentions. I know for some readers that will be a negative, but for those who can read criticism and commentary and grasp the point the writer is making without necessarily having read what he is referring to, this will be a delight. Make no mistake, the more works you've read the better you can get his points, especially in essays dedicated to a work. But another aspect to these essays isn't about the specific works but about understanding how a mind such as Calvino's reads and assesses literature.
Many of the pieces in the first section will mention quite a few works but not really be about any of them. He will be talking about a genre, a way of understanding literature, even how to approach writing and translations. He makes his points and usually tosses out an example or two. Even if you don't know those works, the explanation of an idea that precedes the mention of a work is where the takeaway is, not in simply knowing that work. In other words, don't let being unfamiliar with some of the works he cites keep you from enjoying the stroll through how a very intelligent writer and reader approaches literature.
The essay from which this volume gets its name is very good and, I think, one that most readers will appreciate, as well as any writers. Like any collection some of these pieces won't click for you. Unless you're studying Calvino and want to dissect his every word, there is no problem with disengaging from a few of the essays. I found a lot of the ones from the late 50s and very early 60s particularly interesting because that was right after his disenchantment with the Soviet Union and Stalin and his very public resignation from the Communist Party in Italy. Looking at how he touches on workers and wars, political and cultural ideas, is fodder for an amateur interpreter such as myself. Did he mean this? Was he referring to that? I am eager now to go back and reread all of his work. Alas, it isn't as easy as it once would have been, I lost all of my books way back in Katrina and have not even come close to replacing all 5000 or so books. But I can check a few out, find a few second hand, and fill it out with new copies.
Highly recommended for those with an interest in either Calvino himself or with ways of understanding and appreciating literature in general. You don't have to agree with his views to get a lot out of this book, the methodology holds true regardless.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
There are very few readers who will have read all of the works he mentions. I know for some readers that will be a negative, but for those who can read criticism and commentary and grasp the point the writer is making without necessarily having read what he is referring to, this will be a delight. Make no mistake, the more works you've read the better you can get his points, especially in essays dedicated to a work. But another aspect to these essays isn't about the specific works but about understanding how a mind such as Calvino's reads and assesses literature.
Many of the pieces in the first section will mention quite a few works but not really be about any of them. He will be talking about a genre, a way of understanding literature, even how to approach writing and translations. He makes his points and usually tosses out an example or two. Even if you don't know those works, the explanation of an idea that precedes the mention of a work is where the takeaway is, not in simply knowing that work. In other words, don't let being unfamiliar with some of the works he cites keep you from enjoying the stroll through how a very intelligent writer and reader approaches literature.
The essay from which this volume gets its name is very good and, I think, one that most readers will appreciate, as well as any writers. Like any collection some of these pieces won't click for you. Unless you're studying Calvino and want to dissect his every word, there is no problem with disengaging from a few of the essays. I found a lot of the ones from the late 50s and very early 60s particularly interesting because that was right after his disenchantment with the Soviet Union and Stalin and his very public resignation from the Communist Party in Italy. Looking at how he touches on workers and wars, political and cultural ideas, is fodder for an amateur interpreter such as myself. Did he mean this? Was he referring to that? I am eager now to go back and reread all of his work. Alas, it isn't as easy as it once would have been, I lost all of my books way back in Katrina and have not even come close to replacing all 5000 or so books. But I can check a few out, find a few second hand, and fill it out with new copies.
Highly recommended for those with an interest in either Calvino himself or with ways of understanding and appreciating literature in general. You don't have to agree with his views to get a lot out of this book, the methodology holds true regardless.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Read
November 14, 2024You are not sure how to describe your relationship with Calvino. Are you a fan? A completist? An admirer? An acolyte?
You are, let us say, a devout Calvinist.
And so it is a day of shock and triumph when you stumble upon this fresh volume of essays, this precious lode of Calvino's words and thoughts, which had been hidden away until the year 2023, out of your grasp, locked in that impenetrable safe known as the Italian language. Now, suddenly, it lies open to you, newly translated, as if a stranger had slipped a priceless jewel into your pocket.
(You are a little ashamed, rightly ashamed, to speak none of Calvino's own language, to have read him only in translation. This shame will rise to the surface soon.)
You buy the book, bring it back to your hotel. Immediately you recognize the writer you love. And immediately you know that you are in over your head, that he is not speaking to you.
You love, in some shifting order and among several others, these works of Calvino:
-Invisible Cities, perhaps your favorite novel ever written
-Cosmicomics, which you (by no means a fiction writer) have made blundering attempts to imitate
-If on a winter's night a traveler..., whose virtuosity leaves you a bit chilly, but whose second-person narration style you crib for occasional Goodreads reviews
-Six Memos for the Next Millennium, which you underlined so heavily that the emphasized passages outweigh the un-emphasized ones
-The Baron in the Trees, which you insist upon calling "Calvino's Rubber Soul" without ever explaining what the heck you mean
But you see, reading these new (to you) essays, that Calvino is like God: a thing vaster, more terrifying, more inscrutable than you imagined as a child. He (Calvino, not God) apparently spent 12 hours a day reading. He devoured authors you've never heard of in languages you do not speak. And paging through these essays, taking them all out of order, you feel somewhat out of order yourself. You are a fan who showed up for a book signing, and somehow wound up in a graduate seminar.
And yet you read. It's Calvino, isn't it? And so you, hopelessly monolingual, learn what a polyglot Italian thought of Italian, what he thought in Italian. You learn his peeves and peccadillos. You learn what he did when someone misconstrued his jokes. You learn of the chasm between oral Italian (fleeting, rushed, sentences never finished) and written Italian (which must fashion something wholly different, better suited to the page). Your eyes glaze over as he contrasts novels you've never touched, traces whole literary lineages that mean nothing to you. You feel a bit dull. You feel poorly read. And then you come across a gem of an essay "A Book, Books," and its aphoristic sweep brings you back right into your Calvinism.
You leave a few essays unread. Perhaps you are not a completist after all.
Or perhaps you practice your Calvinism the way that archaeologists practice archaeology: always leaving a few artifacts carefully undisturbed, so that they may return decades hence, when their tools have sharpened and their knowledge has grown. Perhaps you leave a Calvino unread so as to return when you are worthier of the reading.
You are, let us say, a devout Calvinist.
And so it is a day of shock and triumph when you stumble upon this fresh volume of essays, this precious lode of Calvino's words and thoughts, which had been hidden away until the year 2023, out of your grasp, locked in that impenetrable safe known as the Italian language. Now, suddenly, it lies open to you, newly translated, as if a stranger had slipped a priceless jewel into your pocket.
(You are a little ashamed, rightly ashamed, to speak none of Calvino's own language, to have read him only in translation. This shame will rise to the surface soon.)
You buy the book, bring it back to your hotel. Immediately you recognize the writer you love. And immediately you know that you are in over your head, that he is not speaking to you.
You love, in some shifting order and among several others, these works of Calvino:
-Invisible Cities, perhaps your favorite novel ever written
-Cosmicomics, which you (by no means a fiction writer) have made blundering attempts to imitate
-If on a winter's night a traveler..., whose virtuosity leaves you a bit chilly, but whose second-person narration style you crib for occasional Goodreads reviews
-Six Memos for the Next Millennium, which you underlined so heavily that the emphasized passages outweigh the un-emphasized ones
-The Baron in the Trees, which you insist upon calling "Calvino's Rubber Soul" without ever explaining what the heck you mean
But you see, reading these new (to you) essays, that Calvino is like God: a thing vaster, more terrifying, more inscrutable than you imagined as a child. He (Calvino, not God) apparently spent 12 hours a day reading. He devoured authors you've never heard of in languages you do not speak. And paging through these essays, taking them all out of order, you feel somewhat out of order yourself. You are a fan who showed up for a book signing, and somehow wound up in a graduate seminar.
And yet you read. It's Calvino, isn't it? And so you, hopelessly monolingual, learn what a polyglot Italian thought of Italian, what he thought in Italian. You learn his peeves and peccadillos. You learn what he did when someone misconstrued his jokes. You learn of the chasm between oral Italian (fleeting, rushed, sentences never finished) and written Italian (which must fashion something wholly different, better suited to the page). Your eyes glaze over as he contrasts novels you've never touched, traces whole literary lineages that mean nothing to you. You feel a bit dull. You feel poorly read. And then you come across a gem of an essay "A Book, Books," and its aphoristic sweep brings you back right into your Calvinism.
You leave a few essays unread. Perhaps you are not a completist after all.
Or perhaps you practice your Calvinism the way that archaeologists practice archaeology: always leaving a few artifacts carefully undisturbed, so that they may return decades hence, when their tools have sharpened and their knowledge has grown. Perhaps you leave a Calvino unread so as to return when you are worthier of the reading.
January 9, 2024
I admittedly skimmed some of these more than others--it was a real wake up of how little I know about Italian literature! And at times one perhaps doesn't need to know all about the disputes between the realists and this and that faction. I'm not personally very interested in literature By Formula, though reading this did make me think of Elena Ferrante and her political settings--certainly that was the world at the time, one of taking sides and intensity. But reading him on translation, and his great enthusiasm for world literature (for lack of a better word) was fabulous. I had no idea he worked as an editor at Einaudi, and as someone who's done deals with some of the houses whose series he discusses, it gave a new window into the world of Italian publishing, if an incomplete one. Calvino shines through as well as an enthusiast, an experimentor, someone whose writing comes out of his excitement and curiosity. Some of the pieces are clearly thrown off quickly--as a collection goes some pieces are much thinner than others--but it does engender a great affection for the author.
November 13, 2019
"(Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore) Ho cominciato immaginandomi tutti i tipi di romanzo che non scriverò mai; poi ho tentato di scriverli, di evocare all'interno di me stesso l'energia creativa di dieci diversi romanzieri immaginari..... scriviamo quello che non sappiamo: scriviamo per rendere possibile al mondo non scritto di esprimersi attraverso noi. Nel momento in cui la mia attenzione si sposta dall'ordine regolare delle righe scritte e segue la mobile complessità che nessuna frase può contenere o esaurire, mi sento vicino a capire che dall'altro lato delle parole c'è qualcosa che cerca di uscire dal silenzio, di significare attraverso il linguaggio, come battendo colpi su un muro in prigione".
Want to read
February 28, 2023Essay on the newly-translated collection at the NYer:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
Extract:
"Italo Calvino was, word for word, the most charming writer to put pen to paper in the twentieth century. He was born a hundred years ago in Cuba, the eldest son of a wandering Italian botanist and her agronomist husband. Shortly after his birth, the family returned to Italy, where they divided their time between his father’s floriculture station, in the seaside town of San Remo, and a country home sheltered by woods. When Calvino enrolled in the agriculture department at the University of Turin, in 1941, he seemed destined to spend his life grafting one marvellous thing onto another. But, two years later, when the Germans occupied Italy, he left school and fought for the Resistance. His first published stories, in the nineteen-forties, were about war and the horrors of the modern world; by the fifties, he was transmuting these horrors into fables, fairy tales, and historical fictions. Although he remained a dutiful member of the Communist Party for some time after the war, he broke with it after the Hungarian Revolution and, by the mid-sixties, had distanced himself from current affairs altogether. “My reservations and allergies toward the new politics are stronger than the urge to oppose the old politics,” he wrote to Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1973, defending a decision to withdraw into literature. “I spend twelve hours a day reading, on most days of the year.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
Extract:
"Italo Calvino was, word for word, the most charming writer to put pen to paper in the twentieth century. He was born a hundred years ago in Cuba, the eldest son of a wandering Italian botanist and her agronomist husband. Shortly after his birth, the family returned to Italy, where they divided their time between his father’s floriculture station, in the seaside town of San Remo, and a country home sheltered by woods. When Calvino enrolled in the agriculture department at the University of Turin, in 1941, he seemed destined to spend his life grafting one marvellous thing onto another. But, two years later, when the Germans occupied Italy, he left school and fought for the Resistance. His first published stories, in the nineteen-forties, were about war and the horrors of the modern world; by the fifties, he was transmuting these horrors into fables, fairy tales, and historical fictions. Although he remained a dutiful member of the Communist Party for some time after the war, he broke with it after the Hungarian Revolution and, by the mid-sixties, had distanced himself from current affairs altogether. “My reservations and allergies toward the new politics are stronger than the urge to oppose the old politics,” he wrote to Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1973, defending a decision to withdraw into literature. “I spend twelve hours a day reading, on most days of the year.”
June 22, 2015
Eu fiquei com a impressão que alguns dos textos são prescindíveis, ou com algum interesse apenas para os especialistas. No mais, o livro é um primor na escrita e na originalidade. Aliás, como sempre. Só se espera coisas boas vindo daquele armazém de ideias.
November 11, 2021
Calvino non delude mai. Questa raccolta di suoi scritti, misti tra saggistica, periodici e lettere, è davvero una piccola gemma.
January 21, 2025
"In a certain sense, I believe that we always write about something we don’t know: we write to make it possible for the unwritten world to express itself through us. At the moment my attention shifts from the regular order of the written lines and follows the mobile complexity that no sentence can contain or use up, I feel close to understanding that from the other side of the words, from the silent side, something is trying to emerge, to signify through language, like tapping on a prison wall" (p.130).
September 16, 2023
skimmed through but read with vigor a handful of passages that interested me
Calvino swings from literary name-drop to name-drop, offering as much precise critique as he does his own beautiful prose
i particularly enjoyed his writings on the role of translation in literature, the significance of tears and crying as the literary fantastic, and his musings on modern anthropologists like Levi-Strauss and Marvin Harris
i plan on revisiting this after reading more of Calvino's work
Calvino swings from literary name-drop to name-drop, offering as much precise critique as he does his own beautiful prose
i particularly enjoyed his writings on the role of translation in literature, the significance of tears and crying as the literary fantastic, and his musings on modern anthropologists like Levi-Strauss and Marvin Harris
i plan on revisiting this after reading more of Calvino's work
January 4, 2025
Calvino at what he does best; essays on life, literature, the arts, in a fantastical style all his own. Not all the essays were that good, but some stand out.
"Perhaps the first step in renewing a relationship between language and world is the simplest: fix attention on an ordinary object, the most banal and familiar, and describe it minutely, as if it were the newest and most interesting thing in the universe."
"I have to say that most of the books I’ve written and those I have it in mind to write originate in the idea that writing such a book seemed impossible to me. When I’m convinced that a certain type of book is completely beyond the capacities of my temperament and my technical skills, I sit down at my desk and start writing it."
"What they convey is a sense of the approach to the experience, rather than a sense of the experience achieved; their secret is in knowing how to keep the force of desire intact."
"Perhaps the first step in renewing a relationship between language and world is the simplest: fix attention on an ordinary object, the most banal and familiar, and describe it minutely, as if it were the newest and most interesting thing in the universe."
"I have to say that most of the books I’ve written and those I have it in mind to write originate in the idea that writing such a book seemed impossible to me. When I’m convinced that a certain type of book is completely beyond the capacities of my temperament and my technical skills, I sit down at my desk and start writing it."
"What they convey is a sense of the approach to the experience, rather than a sense of the experience achieved; their secret is in knowing how to keep the force of desire intact."
October 1, 2025
Why did this take me forever to finish lol…
Anyways I wanted to read something a bit different to ~expand my horizons~. I don’t know anything about Italian literature, and haven’t read Calvino before (although Invisible Cities is on my tbr!), which made me lack a lot of context about the points he was making.
While I definitely enjoyed some essays more than others, the ones that stood out resonated with me a lot. I found myself underlining a lot of sentences when it came to his philosophy behind translation, his philosophy behind writing and literature in general (the goal being to undergo a transformation), the differences between the material world and the “imagined” world one’s mind creates when reading, his thoughts on love and relationships
Anyways I wanted to read something a bit different to ~expand my horizons~. I don’t know anything about Italian literature, and haven’t read Calvino before (although Invisible Cities is on my tbr!), which made me lack a lot of context about the points he was making.
While I definitely enjoyed some essays more than others, the ones that stood out resonated with me a lot. I found myself underlining a lot of sentences when it came to his philosophy behind translation, his philosophy behind writing and literature in general (the goal being to undergo a transformation), the differences between the material world and the “imagined” world one’s mind creates when reading, his thoughts on love and relationships
January 16, 2024
This is the first book I started reading this year and a beautiful Calvino essay collection on reading, writing, and books that I brought with me on two memorable short trips to SoCal and Hawaii. A great travel companion that leads you through deep thoughts about why you’re reading and why you’re writing that will stay with you.
August 3, 2024
One of the greatest examples of the mind at work on a page. Essays, letters, interviews, reviews, and journals- they all capture the brilliant mind of one of the most interesting writers I've ever read. His blend of interest of psychology, history, and science alongside with passion for politics and philosophy bale together into the sweetest pie that left me pondering on it well after I closed it. A true favorite.
January 1, 2023
Thanks to Penguin for sending me a proof copy in exchange for an honest review, which you can find below.
My only real complaint with this book is that it makes me wish I were more intelligent so I could understand half of the essays in here. I love Italo Calvino's fiction and these essays are always thought-provoking and generally enjoyable but also extremely challenging (or they were for me at least). As an English graduate, my favourites tended to be the ones dealing with themes on writing and reading, which are also often covered in his fiction oeuvre. I loved Good Intentions, The Written World and the Unwritten World and The Knights of the Grail, and I also found some of his reviews of science titles enlightening as someone who abandoned science after secondary school. To sum up, this is not an easy read even by Calvino's exacting standards, but the sheer variety of topics and the breadth of intelligence displayed within still makes for compelling reading.
Also, he gets bonus points for the number of times he mentions Umberto Eco, my OTHER beloved Italian postmodernist author and literary critic of the 20th century.
My only real complaint with this book is that it makes me wish I were more intelligent so I could understand half of the essays in here. I love Italo Calvino's fiction and these essays are always thought-provoking and generally enjoyable but also extremely challenging (or they were for me at least). As an English graduate, my favourites tended to be the ones dealing with themes on writing and reading, which are also often covered in his fiction oeuvre. I loved Good Intentions, The Written World and the Unwritten World and The Knights of the Grail, and I also found some of his reviews of science titles enlightening as someone who abandoned science after secondary school. To sum up, this is not an easy read even by Calvino's exacting standards, but the sheer variety of topics and the breadth of intelligence displayed within still makes for compelling reading.
Also, he gets bonus points for the number of times he mentions Umberto Eco, my OTHER beloved Italian postmodernist author and literary critic of the 20th century.
April 11, 2023
I thought perhaps this was a Calvino novel I hadn't read when I checked out the audio copy from the library, but it turned out to be a collection of essays, book reviews, and other commentary. Much of the book addresses trends in Italian literature, which are less interesting to a reader unschooled in the area, but lots of the essays are quite interesting. I have picked out a few future books to read based on Calvino's comments. Calvino is highly readable and has a knack of ending an essay or book review with a little twist, just like a classic short story.
April 3, 2023
Love this book
April 9, 2023
Fair amount of these pieces missed me, but Montezuma and Cortes was worth the price of admission alone.
June 21, 2023
Interesting bloke Calvino. The book has taken up the role of the book which never leaves my bag. Partly because it’s light, but also because It’s good.
March 4, 2023
Can there be much material left in Italo Calvino’s desk drawers? Since the death of the puckish Italian polymath in 1985, no fewer than six collections of his nonfiction have appeared in English, gathered into the autobiographical (The Road to San Giovanni, Hermit in Paris) or the literary-critical (Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Why Read the Classics?).
So with this seventh collection, The Written World and the Unwritten World, covering a scattering of Calvino’s literary writings from 1952 to 1985 and translated by Ann Goldstein, we might expect scraps from the table. Sure enough, there’s some slight stuff here – a page on character names, say – but the surprise is that we get so much of substance.
The greatest value is in the first section, Reading, Writing, Translating. Calvino softens us up with a playful opener on the ambitions of holiday reading (“The Good Reader has decided that this summer he will really, finally, read that author”), and revels in the pleasures of a good book fair, “this boundless firmament of coloured covers, this dust cloud of typographical characters”.
We also get the lowdown on his favourite writers, a reliable if predictable bunch including Stendhal, Chekhov and Pushkin, but low on women, other than Jane Austen (no, wait: “I never read her but I’m glad she exists”) and Katherine Mansfield.
His love for fantastical literature gets its own section, and the reviews of science books are unfailingly stimulating
But a reader as acute as Calvino doesn’t find it easy to acquiesce with others’ readings of his own work. He writes to a critic who praised his book T Zero: “I’m pleased you find [it] ‘likable’; but the more unlikable a book… the more it counts; the more laborious it is to take in the more it counts.”
Yet this line is hard to square with his declaration elsewhere that “entertaining readers, or at least not boring them, is my first and binding social duty” – and, indeed, with the experience of reading Calvino’s fiction, which is always as welcoming as it is rigorous. This balance – knotty thoughts delivered with a light touch – is evident in all his mature work, from Invisible Cities to Mr Palomar.
Calvino expresses this tension between appeasing and challenging the reader another way, by saying that without the avant garde, literature dies, but that a “perpetual avant garde” is “equally annoying”. Thomas Mann, he argues, is really a 19th-century author, whereas William Faulkner shows the way forward: “Either we write like that or fiction is condemned to become a minor art form.” Meanwhile, Lolita is a great book because “it is so many things at once, because it can shift our attention in infinite directions at the same time” – a fine description of Calvino’s own fiction.
Calvino’s work was widely translated, and working on his translations was “the true way of reading oneself, of understanding what one has written and why”. He admits to being “a tormentor of translators” (which fits with his longtime collaborator William Weaver’s accounts of Calvino’s stubbornness in thinking he knew English well enough to choose the mot juste himself).
Not everything here is essential: some pieces flounder when stripped of context, such as a letter responding to an essay we don’t get to see, and whose references to the HegelianLukácsians and Bergsonism would require its own length in footnotes for the general reader to understand.
But there are plenty of delights. Calvino’s love for fantastical literature gets its own section, and the reviews of science books that make up the final part are unfailingly stimulating. These elements are aspects of Calvino’s curiosity about ways of seeing things. In the title essay, he reflects on his unease in the “real” world outside books, and asks himself, “Why do you want to venture into this vast world that you are unable to master?” The answer, of course, was to put it on the page, to aid the rest of us helpless readers in seeing it and understanding it too.
The Guardian -John Self - Sat 7 Jan 2023
So with this seventh collection, The Written World and the Unwritten World, covering a scattering of Calvino’s literary writings from 1952 to 1985 and translated by Ann Goldstein, we might expect scraps from the table. Sure enough, there’s some slight stuff here – a page on character names, say – but the surprise is that we get so much of substance.
The greatest value is in the first section, Reading, Writing, Translating. Calvino softens us up with a playful opener on the ambitions of holiday reading (“The Good Reader has decided that this summer he will really, finally, read that author”), and revels in the pleasures of a good book fair, “this boundless firmament of coloured covers, this dust cloud of typographical characters”.
We also get the lowdown on his favourite writers, a reliable if predictable bunch including Stendhal, Chekhov and Pushkin, but low on women, other than Jane Austen (no, wait: “I never read her but I’m glad she exists”) and Katherine Mansfield.
His love for fantastical literature gets its own section, and the reviews of science books are unfailingly stimulating
But a reader as acute as Calvino doesn’t find it easy to acquiesce with others’ readings of his own work. He writes to a critic who praised his book T Zero: “I’m pleased you find [it] ‘likable’; but the more unlikable a book… the more it counts; the more laborious it is to take in the more it counts.”
Yet this line is hard to square with his declaration elsewhere that “entertaining readers, or at least not boring them, is my first and binding social duty” – and, indeed, with the experience of reading Calvino’s fiction, which is always as welcoming as it is rigorous. This balance – knotty thoughts delivered with a light touch – is evident in all his mature work, from Invisible Cities to Mr Palomar.
Calvino expresses this tension between appeasing and challenging the reader another way, by saying that without the avant garde, literature dies, but that a “perpetual avant garde” is “equally annoying”. Thomas Mann, he argues, is really a 19th-century author, whereas William Faulkner shows the way forward: “Either we write like that or fiction is condemned to become a minor art form.” Meanwhile, Lolita is a great book because “it is so many things at once, because it can shift our attention in infinite directions at the same time” – a fine description of Calvino’s own fiction.
Calvino’s work was widely translated, and working on his translations was “the true way of reading oneself, of understanding what one has written and why”. He admits to being “a tormentor of translators” (which fits with his longtime collaborator William Weaver’s accounts of Calvino’s stubbornness in thinking he knew English well enough to choose the mot juste himself).
Not everything here is essential: some pieces flounder when stripped of context, such as a letter responding to an essay we don’t get to see, and whose references to the HegelianLukácsians and Bergsonism would require its own length in footnotes for the general reader to understand.
But there are plenty of delights. Calvino’s love for fantastical literature gets its own section, and the reviews of science books that make up the final part are unfailingly stimulating. These elements are aspects of Calvino’s curiosity about ways of seeing things. In the title essay, he reflects on his unease in the “real” world outside books, and asks himself, “Why do you want to venture into this vast world that you are unable to master?” The answer, of course, was to put it on the page, to aid the rest of us helpless readers in seeing it and understanding it too.
The Guardian -John Self - Sat 7 Jan 2023
December 16, 2022
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Mariner Books for an advanced copy of this collection of essays on literature, the world of writing and magic of imagination by Italio Calvino.
Writers read a lot. That's one of those things that writers always share as advice. Read and read often. Writers read for inspiration, great words have a habit of making a day seem better, or for some writers make them want to match these great words with great words of their own. Writers read for research, to learn from those who took the path earlier, learn from their mistakes, or find the path that leads out of that forest of impasses that blocks one from writing. Writers also love to write about writing, what makes them write, what others writers write and what they think about it. Sometimes with sarcasm, sometimes with a knife typing the words, but many times with love. Italio Calvino read thousands of books, and commentated on just as much. This collection The Written World and the Unwritten World, translated by Ann Goldstein, is a collection of all sorts of writings about writing, from over fifty years.
The book is divided into themed chapters well as themed as they can be. There is a section on reading how to read and when to read. A selection on translating, the perils and trials of reading translated books, how meanings can be lost and suggestions inserted. Which is funny to read in a book that is translated. A section on publishing, where books are going and what is happening to both the novel, and the selling out of ideas. And of course the imagination. Where do these crazy ideas come from? What makes one idea work, what makes another not? The importance of characters' names in a story and the effect it might have on the author and later on the reader.
The selections range in size depending on what they were needed for. Some are short, almost like a bit of marginalia, some are the length of forwards, or introductions to other works. And others are essay length, usually looks at authors, works, themes. Some authors will be familiar, some will not be either lost to time or to changing fancy in literature and publishers. There is a lo of humor. I enjoyed the first essay the most as it reminded me of the times I would travel, and spent more time picking out books than I did picking out outfits or even planning where to go. There are two essays about translating that I also found interesting, and raises points from I would say about 40 years ago possibly, that are still relevant today. A collection like this will have some pieces that won't be for everyone, but I enjoyed this collection quite a bit.
Recommended for fans of Calvino who like myself never learned his language and know him only through translated works. Also for people who enjoy reading books on writing, and the ideas and inspirations behind writing and creating any kind of art.
Writers read a lot. That's one of those things that writers always share as advice. Read and read often. Writers read for inspiration, great words have a habit of making a day seem better, or for some writers make them want to match these great words with great words of their own. Writers read for research, to learn from those who took the path earlier, learn from their mistakes, or find the path that leads out of that forest of impasses that blocks one from writing. Writers also love to write about writing, what makes them write, what others writers write and what they think about it. Sometimes with sarcasm, sometimes with a knife typing the words, but many times with love. Italio Calvino read thousands of books, and commentated on just as much. This collection The Written World and the Unwritten World, translated by Ann Goldstein, is a collection of all sorts of writings about writing, from over fifty years.
The book is divided into themed chapters well as themed as they can be. There is a section on reading how to read and when to read. A selection on translating, the perils and trials of reading translated books, how meanings can be lost and suggestions inserted. Which is funny to read in a book that is translated. A section on publishing, where books are going and what is happening to both the novel, and the selling out of ideas. And of course the imagination. Where do these crazy ideas come from? What makes one idea work, what makes another not? The importance of characters' names in a story and the effect it might have on the author and later on the reader.
The selections range in size depending on what they were needed for. Some are short, almost like a bit of marginalia, some are the length of forwards, or introductions to other works. And others are essay length, usually looks at authors, works, themes. Some authors will be familiar, some will not be either lost to time or to changing fancy in literature and publishers. There is a lo of humor. I enjoyed the first essay the most as it reminded me of the times I would travel, and spent more time picking out books than I did picking out outfits or even planning where to go. There are two essays about translating that I also found interesting, and raises points from I would say about 40 years ago possibly, that are still relevant today. A collection like this will have some pieces that won't be for everyone, but I enjoyed this collection quite a bit.
Recommended for fans of Calvino who like myself never learned his language and know him only through translated works. Also for people who enjoy reading books on writing, and the ideas and inspirations behind writing and creating any kind of art.
March 30, 2024
"The work of the editor is hidden, but when it's there it's effective, and when it's not... it's a disaster." (From 'Translating a Text is the True Way of Reading it')
But equally, "what excites and pleases us in editorial work is precisely to offer perspectives that don't coincide with the most obvious." (From 'On Translation')
The editorial choices in this collection of essays are what made this even out at three stars - despite much here being a firm five stars in terms of interest and insight.
The primary issue is that the pieces most casual fans of Calvino's will be most interested in come near the start of the book - in the section titled 'Reading, Writing, Translation'. The section 'On the Fantastic' will also appeal to those of us who have enjoyed his more fantastical stories, to better appreciate his broader understanding of the genre. Aspects of 'On Publishing' might also appeal, albeit the choices here seem rather less insightful, more whimsical, and a tad repetitive.
The final section, 'Science, History, Anthropology', is where the problems really became apparent to me: Despite the thematic sectioning, the essays contained within these sections are often too wide-ranging to appear obviously thematically connected. The groupings suggest a unity that really isn't quite there. And in any case, what kind of a collection is 'Science, History, Anthropology' anyway? Why not just call it 'Misc' and be done?
How would I have done it to make it better, more coherent? Good question. The main challenge is I can't work out the thought processes behind this particular selection. The stuff to do with Calvino's approach and attitude to writing, literature, and publishing all feels obviously connected, and more obviously to have a mass appeal, the rest less so. Perhaps split into two volumes?
But this just raises the further question: what other essays are there that haven't been included that could add greater depth or coherence to these new groupings? Would there be enough to have an entire section on Anthropology, for instance? Or on Science, to contrast with his views on myth and the Fantastic? Or could more focus on *why* Calvino wrote about these things, and what he chose to highlight when reviewing books (the bulk of the final section is made up of book reviews) help reveal more insights into how he thought about the unwritten world?
As it is, this started brilliantly, and held great promise, but then petered out through lack of clear unity. The final essays are interesting, in parts, but always felt a bit random - so there was this constant niggle that somehow a more thoughtful editor could have found a way to connect them more interestingly to the rest.
But equally, "what excites and pleases us in editorial work is precisely to offer perspectives that don't coincide with the most obvious." (From 'On Translation')
The editorial choices in this collection of essays are what made this even out at three stars - despite much here being a firm five stars in terms of interest and insight.
The primary issue is that the pieces most casual fans of Calvino's will be most interested in come near the start of the book - in the section titled 'Reading, Writing, Translation'. The section 'On the Fantastic' will also appeal to those of us who have enjoyed his more fantastical stories, to better appreciate his broader understanding of the genre. Aspects of 'On Publishing' might also appeal, albeit the choices here seem rather less insightful, more whimsical, and a tad repetitive.
The final section, 'Science, History, Anthropology', is where the problems really became apparent to me: Despite the thematic sectioning, the essays contained within these sections are often too wide-ranging to appear obviously thematically connected. The groupings suggest a unity that really isn't quite there. And in any case, what kind of a collection is 'Science, History, Anthropology' anyway? Why not just call it 'Misc' and be done?
How would I have done it to make it better, more coherent? Good question. The main challenge is I can't work out the thought processes behind this particular selection. The stuff to do with Calvino's approach and attitude to writing, literature, and publishing all feels obviously connected, and more obviously to have a mass appeal, the rest less so. Perhaps split into two volumes?
But this just raises the further question: what other essays are there that haven't been included that could add greater depth or coherence to these new groupings? Would there be enough to have an entire section on Anthropology, for instance? Or on Science, to contrast with his views on myth and the Fantastic? Or could more focus on *why* Calvino wrote about these things, and what he chose to highlight when reviewing books (the bulk of the final section is made up of book reviews) help reveal more insights into how he thought about the unwritten world?
As it is, this started brilliantly, and held great promise, but then petered out through lack of clear unity. The final essays are interesting, in parts, but always felt a bit random - so there was this constant niggle that somehow a more thoughtful editor could have found a way to connect them more interestingly to the rest.
March 15, 2024
Unveiling the Craftsman's Mind: A Look at Italo Calvino's "The Written World and The Unwritten World"
Italo Calvino's "The Written World and The Unwritten World" isn't your typical collection of essays. Instead, it offers a window into the mind of a literary master, exploring his thoughts on the role of literature and the act of creation itself.
The book is a rich tapestry woven from essays, reviews, interviews, and even snippets of Calvino's own creative process. These fragments, spanning over three decades, showcase the evolution of his thinking. We see him grapple with the tension between tradition and innovation, the power of storytelling, and the limitations of language in capturing the full spectrum of human experience.
Calvino is a champion of literature's ability to illuminate the human condition. He delves into the works of other authors, dissecting their techniques and praising their contributions to the art form. From classics like Thomas Mann to his contemporaries like Salman Rushdie, Calvino finds inspiration and challenges in a wide range of voices.
The title, "The Written World and The Unwritten World," hints at a central theme: the writer's struggle to capture the vastness of human experience with the finite tools of language. Calvino acknowledges this limitation but celebrates the attempt itself. He encourages writers to push boundaries, experiment with form, and embrace the ever-evolving landscape of literature.
This collection is a treasure trove for dedicated readers and aspiring writers. Calvino's wit, insightful observations, and passion for literature are infectious. However, the book's fragmented nature and focus on specific literary figures might leave casual readers wanting a more traditional narrative.
If you're a bookworm who enjoys delving into the minds of great writers and the mechanics of storytelling, "The Written World and The Unwritten World" is a must-read. However, if you're looking for a linear exploration of a single topic, you might be better suited to one of Calvino's fictional works.
Italo Calvino's "The Written World and The Unwritten World" isn't your typical collection of essays. Instead, it offers a window into the mind of a literary master, exploring his thoughts on the role of literature and the act of creation itself.
The book is a rich tapestry woven from essays, reviews, interviews, and even snippets of Calvino's own creative process. These fragments, spanning over three decades, showcase the evolution of his thinking. We see him grapple with the tension between tradition and innovation, the power of storytelling, and the limitations of language in capturing the full spectrum of human experience.
Calvino is a champion of literature's ability to illuminate the human condition. He delves into the works of other authors, dissecting their techniques and praising their contributions to the art form. From classics like Thomas Mann to his contemporaries like Salman Rushdie, Calvino finds inspiration and challenges in a wide range of voices.
The title, "The Written World and The Unwritten World," hints at a central theme: the writer's struggle to capture the vastness of human experience with the finite tools of language. Calvino acknowledges this limitation but celebrates the attempt itself. He encourages writers to push boundaries, experiment with form, and embrace the ever-evolving landscape of literature.
This collection is a treasure trove for dedicated readers and aspiring writers. Calvino's wit, insightful observations, and passion for literature are infectious. However, the book's fragmented nature and focus on specific literary figures might leave casual readers wanting a more traditional narrative.
If you're a bookworm who enjoys delving into the minds of great writers and the mechanics of storytelling, "The Written World and The Unwritten World" is a must-read. However, if you're looking for a linear exploration of a single topic, you might be better suited to one of Calvino's fictional works.
December 20, 2023
This isn’t the type of book I’d usually choose for myself but when I saw it in the bookstore on vacation over the summer, I was feeling ambitious. Ítalo Culvino, an Italian author, published a collection of essays an analyses from writings done between 1950 and 1980.
As an avid reader and writer, a book on writing really drew me in. I loved the sections on reading, writing, translating and publishing but I did skip over some essays on the classic Italian novel and fantasy in Italian writing, mostly because I just couldn’t understand culturally.
What I did read was extremely thought provoking, intriguing and made me slow down and really process what I was reading. My favorite essays were under science, history and anthropology where Culvino analyzes literature about the Aztec empire, cannibalism, space, genealogy, evolution and love.
Some quotes that stuck out to me:
Art Thefts (Conversations with Tullio Pericoli), page 71: “Maybe I wanted to fully possess a thing that in reality I wanted to free myself from once and for all.”
Art Thefts (Conversations with Tullio Pericoli), page 83: “The act of love is the most individual that exists, but it’s also participation in an infinite chain, the repetition of something that we know is at the very center of the course of the living creature.”
A Book, Books, page 139: “A great book is valuable not because it reaches us to know a definite individual but because it presents to us a new way of understanding human life, applicable to others as well, and which we, too, can use to recognize ourselves.”
Essays on Love by Ortega y Gasset, page 325: “… love is a movement of the soul toward “something we regard as perfect,” recognition of the “excellence” of being loved, or at least an element of it.”
As an avid reader and writer, a book on writing really drew me in. I loved the sections on reading, writing, translating and publishing but I did skip over some essays on the classic Italian novel and fantasy in Italian writing, mostly because I just couldn’t understand culturally.
What I did read was extremely thought provoking, intriguing and made me slow down and really process what I was reading. My favorite essays were under science, history and anthropology where Culvino analyzes literature about the Aztec empire, cannibalism, space, genealogy, evolution and love.
Some quotes that stuck out to me:
Art Thefts (Conversations with Tullio Pericoli), page 71: “Maybe I wanted to fully possess a thing that in reality I wanted to free myself from once and for all.”
Art Thefts (Conversations with Tullio Pericoli), page 83: “The act of love is the most individual that exists, but it’s also participation in an infinite chain, the repetition of something that we know is at the very center of the course of the living creature.”
A Book, Books, page 139: “A great book is valuable not because it reaches us to know a definite individual but because it presents to us a new way of understanding human life, applicable to others as well, and which we, too, can use to recognize ourselves.”
Essays on Love by Ortega y Gasset, page 325: “… love is a movement of the soul toward “something we regard as perfect,” recognition of the “excellence” of being loved, or at least an element of it.”
March 11, 2024
A Treasure Trove for Bookworms: A Review of "The Written World and the Unwritten World"
Italo Calvino's "The Written World and the Unwritten World" is a captivating collection of essays, letters and lectures that offer a window into the mind of a literary master. What truly shines is Calvino's infectious passion for storytelling. He delves into the power of reading, the intricacies of writing, and the ever-evolving landscape of literature. Whether he's discussing classic works or exploring the avant-garde, Calvino's insights are insightful and thought-provoking.
The book's format keeps things fresh. You'll find short, sharp essays alongside in-depth reflections on specific authors and genres. There's even a fascinating exploration of the limitations of photography compared to the boundless potential of fiction.
Be aware, however, that this book is most rewarding for those with a base knowledge of literature. Calvino frequently references other writers and works. Even if you haven't read everything he mentions, his enthusiasm for the written word is contagious.
Here's the real charm of "The Written World and the Unwritten World": it reignites your love for reading. Calvino reminds us of the joy of getting lost in a story, the power of words to transport us, and the beauty of the creative process. This book is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a lifelong learner and a true bookworm.
Italo Calvino's "The Written World and the Unwritten World" is a captivating collection of essays, letters and lectures that offer a window into the mind of a literary master. What truly shines is Calvino's infectious passion for storytelling. He delves into the power of reading, the intricacies of writing, and the ever-evolving landscape of literature. Whether he's discussing classic works or exploring the avant-garde, Calvino's insights are insightful and thought-provoking.
The book's format keeps things fresh. You'll find short, sharp essays alongside in-depth reflections on specific authors and genres. There's even a fascinating exploration of the limitations of photography compared to the boundless potential of fiction.
Be aware, however, that this book is most rewarding for those with a base knowledge of literature. Calvino frequently references other writers and works. Even if you haven't read everything he mentions, his enthusiasm for the written word is contagious.
Here's the real charm of "The Written World and the Unwritten World": it reignites your love for reading. Calvino reminds us of the joy of getting lost in a story, the power of words to transport us, and the beauty of the creative process. This book is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a lifelong learner and a true bookworm.
May 2, 2019
4.5 estrellas que se redondean a 5.
Si bien los ensayos que se nos presentan en esta bella edición representan el punto culminante en el pensamiento calviniano, algunos se enfocan completamente en la literatura italiana y su propia editorial, de la que no me interesa y presenta autores que no conozco en lo más mínimo, lo que nos lleva a una espesa charla sobre la historia particular de ciertas regiones italianas y de autores emergentes de su tiempo. Aunque se aprende algo con esto, no me lleva a interesarme en el tema, por eso la media estrella menos.
Ahora bien, los ensayos 'Mundo escrito y no escrito', '¿Por qué escribe usted?' y 'El libro, los libros' son fantásticos, valen todo el libro, y se pueden releer mil veces. Los que hablan de la importancia de la traducción también tienen su punto, y Calvino demuestra su genialidad con los temas editoriales que domina. 'Moctezuma y Cortés' es una agradable sorpresa que nos plantea una dimensión interesante de la conquista y del papel de los vencedores y vencidos. Infortunadamente no he leído libros que él reseña al final de este compendio, pero gracias a su habilidad logra que me interese por un título o dos.
Un libro indispensable para entender la grandeza narrativa de este genio.
Si bien los ensayos que se nos presentan en esta bella edición representan el punto culminante en el pensamiento calviniano, algunos se enfocan completamente en la literatura italiana y su propia editorial, de la que no me interesa y presenta autores que no conozco en lo más mínimo, lo que nos lleva a una espesa charla sobre la historia particular de ciertas regiones italianas y de autores emergentes de su tiempo. Aunque se aprende algo con esto, no me lleva a interesarme en el tema, por eso la media estrella menos.
Ahora bien, los ensayos 'Mundo escrito y no escrito', '¿Por qué escribe usted?' y 'El libro, los libros' son fantásticos, valen todo el libro, y se pueden releer mil veces. Los que hablan de la importancia de la traducción también tienen su punto, y Calvino demuestra su genialidad con los temas editoriales que domina. 'Moctezuma y Cortés' es una agradable sorpresa que nos plantea una dimensión interesante de la conquista y del papel de los vencedores y vencidos. Infortunadamente no he leído libros que él reseña al final de este compendio, pero gracias a su habilidad logra que me interese por un título o dos.
Un libro indispensable para entender la grandeza narrativa de este genio.
April 25, 2023
Saw this at the library and figured the late Italo Calvino is guaranteed good reading, so piles and piles of books already here waiting to be read notwithstanding, I brought it home. But I will give myself credit for deciding just to read the essays that looked most interesting and return the book with the rest unread. The ones I did read were fabulous, so I'm giving the book 5 stars despite having read less than half of the contents (not usually something I would be bragging about).
The first essay ("Good Intentions") begins by invoking The Good Reader, and that made me smile. I also read the title essay, and the one that followed that "A Book, Books," both of them very enjoyable. In the section on publishing, I read the piece about an Italian publisher's series of books of about 100 pages, partly because I can never resist a list of books, and partly because a list of short books is easier to contemplate than a list of great huge tomes each of which will take forever to get through. The reviews of by Freeman Dyson and by Claude Levi-Strauss were both good reading as well. Time for this book to go back to the library now, so someone else can enjoy it.
The first essay ("Good Intentions") begins by invoking The Good Reader, and that made me smile. I also read the title essay, and the one that followed that "A Book, Books," both of them very enjoyable. In the section on publishing, I read the piece about an Italian publisher's series of books of about 100 pages, partly because I can never resist a list of books, and partly because a list of short books is easier to contemplate than a list of great huge tomes each of which will take forever to get through. The reviews of by Freeman Dyson and by Claude Levi-Strauss were both good reading as well. Time for this book to go back to the library now, so someone else can enjoy it.
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