I am having fun with this book not only because the tales are really short, but becuause I am experiencing the folk tale mode that makes story telling unique. There are many good and interesting tales that makes me think about possible ways of interpretation and re-telling the same tale over and over....!

Well, Neil Gaiman gave it five stars...

and Wikipedia had this intriguing insight:

"Over a seven-year period, Calvino wrote three realist novels, The White Schooner (1947–1949), Youth in Turin (1950–1951), and The Queen's Necklace (1952–54), but all were deemed defective.[28] During the eighteen months it took to complete I giovani del Po (Youth in Turin), he made an important self-discovery: "I began doing what came most naturally to me – that is, following the memory of the things I had loved best since boyhood. Instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic."[29] The result was Il visconte dimezzato (1952; The Cloven Viscount) composed in 30 days between July and September 1951. The protagonist, a seventeenth century viscount sundered in two by a cannonball, incarnated Calvino's growing political doubts and the divisive turbulence of the Cold War.[30] Skillfully interweaving elements of the fable and the fantasy genres, the allegorical novel launched him as a modern "fabulist".[31] In 1954, Giulio Einaudi commissioned his Fiabe Italiane (1956; Italian Folktales) on the basis of the question, "Is there an Italian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm?"[32] For two years, Calvino collated tales found in 19th century collections across Italy then translated 200 of the finest from various dialects into Italian. Key works he read at this time were Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale and Historical Roots of Russian Fairy Tales, stimulating his own ideas on the origin, shape and function of the story.[33]"

Jo Walton's short take from Dec, 2021:
"Italian Folktales, Italo Calvino (1956)
This is a collection of folk and fairy tales collected by Calvino and others from all over Italy and retold by Calvino. They all have provenance, and it’s fascinating to see the varieties of stories popular in different places. It’s a huge volume; I’ve been reading this for months, and enjoying the process. These stories are different from Grimm and Perrault but also similar to them… There’s nothing here as strange as the Russian or Japanese folktale collections I’ve read, but it’s interesting seeing how much variation there is in this kind of story. There’s a surprising amount of fratricide here, for instance, and more boats than I’d expect."
https://www.tor.com/2022/01/07/jo-wal...

This is a fun book with a whole lot (200) of cute and sometimes dark folktales. There are some great ones, like what has to be the basis for Beauty and the Beast. The writing is great as it always is with Calvino.

The problem is that there are wayyyyy too many. 800 pages of folktales is too long. After 50 or so they can get repetitive and formulaic. I ended up skipping a bunch of stories. Because of this I couldn't rationalize 3 stars, even though the enjoyment level was definitely there.

This would be a really great book to read to a kid (although beware of the violence and monsters), or something to pick up and read 3-4 at a time over the course of a year, but to try to work through the whole thing straight is not something I recommend.

I haven't made it through all 200 of the folktales in this massive compilation. I prefer to read a handful at a time and come back for more periodically. The stories are mostly just fun, fantastic tales with few easily identifiable "morals to the story." Calvino does a great job telling the stories, though he does not insert his quirky, enjoyable voice into the renditions as much as I'd expected.

Wonderful collection. My favorite story was Silver Nose :)

It's not the cosmicomics :(

Finalmente l’ho concluso! Non ci contavo più. Fiabe italiane è un’opera colossale. Duecento fiabe scritte o trascritte da Calvino che attingono alla tradizione del nostro paese. Le fonti sono le più disparate, dai racconti orali ad autori come Basile, Straparola, Pitrè, giusto per citare i più noti. Queste fiabe mi hanno accompagnato per quasi un anno tra un romanzo e l’altro. Ne emerge un universo immaginario coloratissimo e imprevedibile. La scrittura è volutamente essenziale e proprio per questo accende la fantasia del lettore. I temi sono ricorrenti: travestimenti, scarpine perdute, giovani che partono in cerca di fortuna, animali parlanti, gentili fate madrine, mostri paurosi. Ogni fiaba, nondimeno, è una piccola perla. Posso dire onestamente che sono davvero pochissime le storie che non mi sono piaciute. Non riuscirò mai a ricordarle tutte, ma fra le mie preferite Maria di legno, La barba del conte, Giricoccola, Il lupo e le tre ragazze, La figlia del sole, Fantaghirò persona bella e Il re nel paniere. Al termine del libro, in una lunga serie di note, Calvino indica con dovizia di particolari le proprie fonti e i suoi interventi sui testi originali. Un lavoro prezioso, senza il quale la maggior parte di questi racconti sarebbe andata perduta e da cui partire alla ricerca delle fonti.

Una raccolta che ho letto con infinito piacere. Ho sempre amato le fiabe, di qualsiasi tipo, e questa raccolta di Calvino rappresenta un lavoro eccezionale. Non mi dilungo sui metodi di raccolta e trascrizione, però sono interessantissimi e fondamentali per comprendere le varie scelte e i vari tipi di fiaba. All'inizio pensavo di annotarmi le fiabe che mi sono piaciute di più, poi poco dopo l'inizio della lettura ho cambiato idea perché avrei dovuto annotarle quasi tutte (e sono 200). Perciò posso semplicemente consigliare questa raccolta a tutti colore che amano le fiabe e sono curiosi di scoprire quelle della tradizione orale italiana.

Oh this was excellent! Little poems at the end of stories, oddball twists, a few reoccuring characters and stories where all the characters are named King. A fast read and lots of silly fun

“So they remained happy and contented forevermore,
While here we sit, grinding our teeth behind the door."

An anthology of Italian folktales selected and retold by Italo Calvino, translated into English by George Martin. Not really a "scientific" but a "popular" collection, since Calvino combines versions and occasionally deletes material or adds touches of his own, but true to the original spirit and very entertaining to read. The introduction discusses the history of the Italian folktale in literature and theories of folklore (briefly); there are 200 stories, most 2-4 pages long.

I must say, I like the fables Calvino invents for himself more than these little snippets of Italian folklore. While some were definitely enjoyable as literature, they were not intended as “literature” in the sense that we understand it, and therefore are a bit hard to appreciate as such. While I applaud the effort, and on the off-chance that I produce some little ones I might read these stories to them, it's not the book for adult me.