Word: calvino
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...Calvino does his best to avoid these traps and usually succeeds. I am pleased to note, for example, that Pin learns nothing in the course of the novel. In writing about Calvino upon his death in 1985, Gore Vidal said, "He looks; he describes; he has a scientist's respect for data (the opposite of the surrealist or fantasist)." He is here absolutely right; nothing that happens is unbelievable (although a prison escape strains credulity), but it is all quite weird and foreign to a life lived outside of wartime...
...Although Calvino's book is influenced by the neo-realist movement which dominated Italian post-war culture, the novel nonetheless has an air of surreality. It often seems like a fable because so much is presented to the reader through the eyes of an eight year old, precocious in some ways and naive in most, as all eight year olds...
...about 150 pages, the book is almost a novella and thus is supplemented with a lovely preface by Calvino himself, written in 1964. Calvino's later and better-known novels were neither warm nor autobiographical (with the exception of his final novel, the distanced and pensive Mr. Palomar), so it is somewhat surprising to find Calvino reflective and downright chatty. Nests was originally published in 1947 when Calvino was twenty-three; writing in 1964, Calvino was twenty-three; writing in 1964, Calvinoapparently felt the 17 years in between had earnedhim the seniority which marks his attitude in thepreface, even though...
...preface, Calvino also discusses his ownexperiences fighting in the Resistance andthoughtfully examines his relationship to the bookas a whole and to Pin in particular. He writesabout his influences; he talks about his politicaland literary ideals. He is not altogether honesthere, however; although he gently rebukes hisyouthful self for his politics, he fails to notethat he was a member of the Communist Party for 10years after the novel's publication and wouldwrite about politics from an intelligentlyleftwing perspective for his whole life...
...Calvino preface is so nuanced that it toorequires an introduction, and Martin McLaughlin,who is responsible for the new translation, ablyprovides it. Calvino substantially re-edited thebook in 1954, toning down the Communism, misogynyand violence of his characters. (It is a littlemisleading to speak of the Communism, misogyny andviolence in this book because the tone of thestory is so far removed from the world of thoseadult concerns. Although Pin frequently describeswomen as "disgusting," this is, more than anythingelse, an eight-year old who thinks all girls havecooties.) Calvino declines to mention this re-editin his lengthy introduction, although McLaughlintoo generously...