The Watcher and Other Stories (Harbrace Paperbound Library)

Product Information

the certainty of what they were doing, but also a hint of absurdity” and why these elections “…were mistaken for an expression of the will of the people. Also, the guy has a model (or at least rich, famous, and gorgeous) girlfriend that drops in on him a few times. The first two are simply dark and a bit depressing, more in the vein of his "Path to the Spiders' Nests," while the third is just tragicomic.

As Ormea challenges the tra ditional political practices of the inferno‐like hospital ward, his own life comes under scru tiny as well.Ultimately, my perseverance was rewarded, but I still would not recommend this to someone who doesn't already know and appreciate Calvino's better known works. He was a paid-up member of the party, true enough, and though he could hardly be considered an “activist,” as his nature tended toward a quiet life, he never hung back when there was something useful to be done that lay within his capacities. It's only 75 pages long, so by the time I'd got used to Calvino's style and his perspective, the story was half over. 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).

This collection of three long stories by the author of Cosmicomics "demonstrates clearly his talent for transforming the mundane into the marvelous" ( The New York Times). Who would think, Amerigo said to himself, now determined to see everything in the best possible light, that women have enjoyed their civil rights for so few years? At the local cell, they considered him a sound man, with a good background; and now they had appointed him a poll watcher, a modest assignment, but a serious, necessary job, especially at this particular polling place, which was set up inside a great religious institution. Now of course we all understand that these ideas are espoused by a character in a novel, and not by Calvino himself, and in fact the narrator’s thinking strays wildly between the two extremes of “thinking these disabled people are effectively subhuman” and “being sympathetic (and even empathetic) to the plight of every member of the human race. And what’s more, it’s the women who show the most common sense, good at little practical problems, helping the men, who are more self-conscious.Calvino regarded each of these causes as an enemy of humanity that limited the ability of people and society to remain healthy and whole. Calvino makes parallels of the voting act with a religious rite and leaves us with the feeling of “…. ITALO CALVINO (1923-1985) attained worldwide renown as one of the twentieth century's greatest storytellers. Even when his elegant celebrity girlfriend spends weekends with him, he can't think about anything except the dust. The general picture, then, which Calvino develops is that of a “two‐headed” society whose Battle of the Books—between the Bible and the works of the young Marx— ends, for most men, in a dead lock.

In the title story, an Italian Communist poll watcher is stationed at a hospital in Turin, where nuns guide the hands of invalids to their preferred candidate in a special election. Calvino uses the asylum and its inhabitants a metaphor for democratic society and its odd creatures. We believe that books can lead to greater empathy and understanding in the world helping us open ourselves to other lives and experiences.The factory idea went beyond the external resemblance: the same practical talents, the same spirit of private enterprise of the founders of the big industries had also inspired—though expressing the suc cor of outcasts rather than production and profit—the simple priest who between 1832 and 1842 had founded and organized and operated, despite difficulties and hostility, this monument to charity on the scale of the nascent industrial revolution; and even his name—Cottolengo, that simple rustic family name—had lost all individual connotation and had come to denote a world-famous institution. Founded by an avid collector with 30+ years experience in all facets of the book trade from bookselling and library science to publishing. Ah, um acréscimo de fangirl: Italo Calvino é foda e a obra dele não podia ser editada por outra editora.

It’s amazing to me that the basic archetypes and situations are still literally relevant to today’s world. Each meaning faded into the next, and on the walls the rain was soaking the election posters, suddenly aged, as if their aggressiveness had died with the last evening of the political battle among meetings and billposters, the night before last, and as if these posters were already reduced to a patina of paste and cheap paper, where, layer upon layer, the symbols of the opposing parties could be read, transparently. Its individual scenes are striking: images of ants crawling all over the landscape, up the walls of the small house, around and in to the baby’s cradle; the poisoned neighbors who cannot stop laughing when talking about their ant treatment options, all of which are presumably dangerous chemicals; the genius tinkerer neighbor who would serve as a good interrogator in a different life; the Ant Man and his cowering ways. I gave this high marks based on "The Watcher" alone since this is the only distant past read book and will review.His later writing takes on flights of imagination and creativity that fit the label "allegorical fantasy," but "The Watcher and Other Stories" lets Calvino's writing genius shine through without gimmickry. He seemed to be working towards literary styles that were suited to urban and rustic life (and its socio-political implications). In "The Watcher, " a member of the Communist Party is assigned to a polling place in Turin's Hospital for Incurables, where he observes the rejects of humanity and a grotesque parody of the democratic process. Although I did enjoy this book, I would suggest that readers unfamiliar with Calvino try some of his masterpieces first, and then move onto the minutiae of works such as these.