"If time has to end, it can be described, instant by instant," Mr. Palomar thinks, "and each instant, when described, expands so that its end can no longer be seen." He decides that he will set himself to describing every instant of his life, and until he has described them all he will no longer think of being dead. At that moment he dies.
In memoriam of Italo Calvino, who died exactly 20 years ago.
"Calvino's novels" by his friend Gore Vidal. Calvino's obituary by Vidal, il maestro William Weaver's essay on Calvino's cities, Jeanette Winterson on Calvino's dream of being invisible, and Stefano Franchi's philosophical study on Palomar's doctrine of the void. More inside.
posted on Sep 18, 2005 - View this thread

Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities is so called because it asserts that what makes up a city is not so much its physical structure but the impression it imparts upon its visitors, the way its inhabitants move within, something unseen that hums between the cracks. This, however, has in no way dissuaded people from attempting to give form to his works. One such example is the Hotel Tressants, a building in Menorca, Spain containing 8 rooms named after and inspired by various cities from the novel. Meanwhile, artists offer illustrations^1,2,3, installations ^1,2,3,4,5, music^1,2,3,4,5,6 and dance, hypertexts^1,2, computer programs and animations, even View-Master slides, while intellectuals offer readings and commentary^1,2, lectures^1,2, and critical texts^1,2,3 sparked by the man and his writings. It has been dubbed "The Calvino Effect". Do you know of any more?
posted on May 20, 2005 - View this thread

"I was willing to bet that there was going to be a universe, and I hit the nail on the head." The other day we had Avram Davidson, which got me thinking of Calvino's Invisible Cities, but all the recent talk about black holes made me remember that Italo Calvino is at his most charming when he's playing with physics, math, and cosmology in Cosmicomics.
posted on Nov 20, 2002 - View this thread

100,000,000,000,000 Poems. In 1961, French writer and mathematician Raymond Queneau published a work consisting of ten sonnets with the lines cut up so that they could be recombined in this number of ways. Magnus Bodin's page offers all the variations (in English, French or Swedish). Queneau, who also wrote a book consisting of one small incident described in 99 different styles, was a member of the OuLiPo group of writers, who chose to work under systematic constraints. Other members included George Perec, who wrote a novel without using the letter E, (a lipogram cleverly translated by Gilbert Adair), Italo Calvino, and Harry Matthews. Techniques to consider when filling that blog becomes a chore.
posted on Feb 13, 2002 - View this thread