Word: calvino
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...NONEXISTENT KNIGHT & THE CLOVEN VISCOUNT (246 pp.)−Italo Calvino−Random House...
Knights have been a favorite target of parodists ever since they first stepped into their armor. But not even Don Quixote is quite so grotesque as the heroes of these two short novels. One has only half a body; the other has none at all. It is Italian Novelist Calvino's way of saying how empty are the ideals of chivalry, whether medieval or modern...
...short-order trials that pass for justice in Castro's Cuba, five members of the defeated invasion force that landed last April were sentenced to death and quickly executed; nine others got 30-year sentences. Technically, the 14 were tried for crimes they committed before the invasion. Ramon Calvino, a police corporal during the regime of Dictator Fulgencio Batista, was accused of killing and torturing prisoners: George King Yun, was accused of killing a port guard last year while he was stealing a boat. Nine hours after the trials began, verdicts were in, sentences pronounced, and appeals denied...
...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...