Comments on: Some reading (Buying generously III)

By: Matt McGrattan

Matt McGrattan — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:49:35 +0000

For Calvino I’d recommend ‘Difficult Loves’ which are mostly sweetly self-contained short stores. Bizarrely, several of the short stories from ‘Difficult Loves’ were combined and turned into indie-film “Palookaville” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117284/)

By: Backword Dave

Backword Dave — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:01:23 +0000

I’d nominate Invisible Cities for Chris’s next read too. I go along with the ‘everything by Calvino is delightful’ line and don’t find him ‘hard going’ at all. Chris is right about the stories not really getting anywhere; they’re far more like musical variations than ripping yarns.

By: Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:20:49 +0000

People might consider reading the rather chilling post at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/24/18317/056 before they state (as Chris did not, but some have) that The Plot Against America is ludicrously over the top in its fears, that in modern America anti-semitism just isn’t part of the landscape. Seeing what has happened since the book came out, I have to wonder if Roth’s fears are less subtle than Patriot Act and Guantanamo; that perhaps he, unlike the rest of us happily reading our blue-state media and talking to sane people everyday, had and has some idea of just what ideas lurk out there in Red America waiting for their moment, and getting bolder by the hour.

By: praktike

praktike — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:48:01 +0000

Calino is God. Invisible Cities should be your next read, followed by The Cloven Viscount and Mr. Palomar.

By: Motoko

Motoko — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:32:38 +0000

I am very fond of Calvino’s “Six Memos for the New Millennium” (lectures on “Lightness”, “Quickness”, “Exactitude”, “Visibility” and “Multiplicity”; he died before he could write “Consistency”.)

By: tps12

tps12 — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:04:04 +0000

t zero was the first Calvino I read. The imagery in “The Soft Moon” is pretty amazing.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:41:51 +0000

Any comments on Sebald’s On the Natural History of Destruction?

By: pedro

pedro — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:22:51 +0000

I may disagree with Anatoly on the relative merits of the three works mentioned, but I second his recommendation. I also liked The Nonexistent Knight and the Cloven Viscount, as well as Difficult Loves—that is to say, everything I’ve read by Calvino has been truly delightful.

By: Anatoly

Anatoly — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 13:45:47 +0000

Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” and “Mr. Palomar” both deserve attention, and are better (in my opinion) than the more frequently mentioned “If, On a …”