Italo Calvino , writer Italy N (occasionally Scenario writer), member of the OuLiPo, born with Santiago of Las Vegas (Cuba) the October 15th 1923, died in His (Italy) the September 19th 1985 at the 62 years age, fact part of the Italian great writers of the 20th century.
Biography
Calvino was born in Cuba where his/her Mario father, of ligure origin, works as agronomist, and his/her mother Evelina Mameli (or Eva), native of Sardinia, is biologist.In 1925 it then returns to Italy Mussolinienne where it grows (with Sanremo) and receives a laic education and antifascist.
When the war bursts, it stops its studies of agronomy; in 1943, it joined the partisans of the brigades Garibaldi and in 1945, it is found with Turin where it collaborates with several newspapers, is registered with the Communist party and undertakes studies of letters which it will brilliantly conclude by a report from English literature on Joseph Conrad. At this period, it becomes acquainted with Cesare Pavese who encourages it to write.
In 1947, it publishes its first novel, the Path of the nests of spiders , which evokes its experiment of resistant. Work meets a certain success. In 1949 the Corbel appears comes the last . These two works are born in the atmosphere neorealist but are impressed, the first especially, of a style which approaches the fable. In 1952, on the councils of its editor, it gives up his neo-realist manner and is let go to its inclinations for the tale of fantasy, through the Viscount pourfendu who will form, with the Baron perched and the non-existent Knight , celebrates it trilogy Our ancestors , allegorical vision of the modern human condition. Between 1950 and 1956, it undertakes the compilation and the translation of the Italian popular Contes starting from folk tales of the 19th century.
After the invasion of Hungary in 1956, Calvino is diverted Communist party and, gradually, political commitment.
With beginning of the year 60, in two articles: the sea of objectivity and the challenge with the labyrinth , it thinks of the international literary situation and tries to define its clean poetic in an increasingly complex and indecipherable world.
It publishes in 1963 the Day of a teller , then in 1964 settles in Paris where it will come into contact with the members of the OuLiPo. In parallel, its interest for the natural science and sociology do not cease growing. Those will influence its work: Cosmicomics (1965) is a collection of tales fantastico-scientists, which once more illustrate its taste for the fantastic one.
In 1964, it Marie and has a girl the following year.
the Castle of the cross destinies (1969), the invisible Cities (1972), So by a night of winter a traveller (1979), belong to the “combinative system of the accounts and the human destinies”, system with the help of which Calvino - while being based on a certain number of elements (figures of the tarot in the Castle of the cross destinies ) - claimed to build these accounts. This “systematism” translates the influence of the OuLiPo and the taste of its members for all the forms of writing to constraints.
He dies in 1985 of a brain hemorrhage, whereas he prepared, for the university of Harvard the American Leçons , which will appear after its death.
The esthetics of Calvino
De Calvino, Roland Barthes said: “In the art of Calvino and in what shows through of the man in what he writes, there is - let us employ the old word, it is a word of the eighteenth century - a sensitivity. One could also say a humanity, I would say almost a kindness, if the word were not too heavy to carry: i.e. there is, at any moment, in the notations, an irony which is never wounding, never aggressive, a distance, a smile, a sympathy. ”
The neo-realist experiment
The Néoréalisme was, more than a school, a way of feeling the things divided by the young writers of the post-war period, which felt agents of a new social reality.
Calvino, referring to this period, declares that after the war it had tried - without obtaining convincing result - to tell, with the first anybody, his experiment of resistant. It is only after it adopted an external point of view, and thus a certain detachment, that its work gave him whole satisfaction.
Thus Calvino conceived the Path of the nests of spiders . By adopting the point of view of of Pine, the young narrator, it gives a fabulous, fantastic character with the account. By this diverted means, the writer manages to avoid the reality of the attributes of the dream without to make him lose his consistency, while mythico-fabulous dimension avoids with the account heavinesses of what could have been a emphatic work on the Résistance.
Thus Calvino starts it a process which will become to him clean: to reduce the narration in order to make work - according to the level of interpretation adopted - accessible to all, including the not informed readers.
This choice, justified at the beginning by ideological reasons easy to include/understand, will make it possible thereafter Calvino to multiply the reading levels of its works. Even in the Corbel comes the last , while adhering to neo-realist esthetics, Calvino cannot be prevented from preserving the fabulous vein at it although giving up this time the point of view of the child.
The fantastic period
Calvino was always attracted by the popular Littérature, the universe of the fable, in particular. In the Viscount pourfendu , it exploits the vein Fantastique: the framework is that of the fable while the narration is done on two levels: most immediately perceptible, the fabulous account, but also the allegorical level and symbolic system which is very rich (it develops in particular the topics of contrast between reality and illusion, ideology and ethics, etc). But the morals of the novel is initially an invitation with the nuance, since it appears that the absolute truth is a dream.
The two other novels of the trilogy Our ancestors obey the same principle of operation. The hero of the Baron perched is a alter ego of Calvino, from now on removed from his old designs and which does not see any more the literature like carrying a political message. the non-existent Knight , the last of the trilogy, is a darker novel, on the other hand.
Concurrently to this “fabulous” production, Calvino continues to treat in its works of daily reality.
This cycle belongs Marcovaldo , novel in two parts. The first (1958) refers more to the manner of the fable while the second (1963) approaches urban topics on a tone which confines with the absurdity. The same year that this last, appears the Day of a teller in whom Calvino tells the electoral day of a Communist militant, teller in an asylum acting as polling station, which is deeply disturbed by its unforeseen contact with a perfectly irrational world.
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