'Words connect the visible track to the invisible thing ... like a fragile makeshift bridge cast across the void' With imagination and wit, Italo Calvino sought to define the virtues of the great literature of the past in order to shape the values of the future. His effervescent last works, left unfinished at his death, were the Charles Eliot Norton lectures, which he was due to deliver at Harvard in 1985-86. These surviving drafts explore the literary concepts closest to his heart: Lightness, Quickness, Multiplicity, ...
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'Words connect the visible track to the invisible thing ... like a fragile makeshift bridge cast across the void' With imagination and wit, Italo Calvino sought to define the virtues of the great literature of the past in order to shape the values of the future. His effervescent last works, left unfinished at his death, were the Charles Eliot Norton lectures, which he was due to deliver at Harvard in 1985-86. These surviving drafts explore the literary concepts closest to his heart: Lightness, Quickness, Multiplicity, Exactitude and Visibility (Constancy was to be the sixth), in serious yet playful essays that reveal his debt to the comic strip and the folktale. This collection, now in a fluent and supple new translation, is a brilliant pr???cis of a great writer whose legacy will endure through the millennium he addressed. Translated by Geoffrey Brock 'The book I give most to people is Six Memos for the Next Millennium' Ali Smith 'Wonderful . . . full of wit and erudition' Daily Telegraph
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"This is a MUST READ for any aspiring writer or poet. Calvino's "memos" in this EXCEPTIONAL work on literary values number five: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, and Multiplicity [the sixth was to be Consistency, but we are deprived by his untimely death]. This is an excellent book - read it cover to cover, make notes. I found it so good that I hesitate to draw from it for this review. It was published prior to the millenium, but he was thinking about the future of writing and I still find his comments laudatory today. I will venture to say that Calvino wrote from the perspective of more than 40 years of writing and his comment for an overall definition of his work is worth repeating. "...my working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight". Many authors could benefit greatly from applying this to their manuscripts.
I only know Italo Calvino's work in English translation - many kudos to Patrick Creagh, the translator and others to be thanked for this book, including Calvino's wife, Esther. The writings were prepared in the mid-1980s to be read by Calvino at Harvard University for The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1986. He died before he could go to the United States for this event.
I recommend this book to any reader and especially all writers. The briefness of the memos are an additional value as it could be read again and again as a standard against which to measure your own work or commentary on writing.
My favorite Calvino so far are the short stories on Mr. Palomar. I particularly love "The infinite lawn" for his musings on "the lawn" and "the universe". Read it!"
