Word: calvino
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...BARON IN THE TREES (217 pp.)-Italo Calvino-Random House...
...tree-every child knows that. Seen from a stout limb and framed in shade, the world seems a safer and more interesting place. But sooner or later the child must come down to earth. In this novel, the hero never comes down, and neither does Italian Author Italo Calvino. He seems to have had great fun dreaming up his fantasy; all he asks of the reader is a suspended intelligence and a taste for the bizarre...
Aside from well-written and amusing scenes. The Baron in the Trees stops short of real worth. Its satire on life-on-the-ground is too tentative to slice deep, and only once does Author Calvino suggest a theme. That is when Voltaire asks Cosimo's brother: "But is it to be nearer the sky that your brother stays up there?" The answer: "My brother considers that anyone who wants to see the earth properly must keep himself at a necessary distance from...