My mother gave me this book when I was seven years old. She got it from a salesman who was smart enough to convince her that the book was perfect for a seven years old, even though it was a book of more than a thousand pages, and an expensive one, with an heavy binding that made it difficult for a little boy to handle. Well, this was probably the best gift I ever had. I read the book countless times, totally fascinated by the weirdness of the characters and by the gruesomeness of the stories, elements that hugely enhanced the sweet flavour of the unavoidable happy endings. German and Nordic folktales in comparison were for little kid, I thought back then.

It was because of this book that I later fell in love with the magnificent work of Italo Calvino. It started my obsession with the structuralist analysis of fairy tales of Vladimir Propp as well, and a passion and respect for folktales still alive after so many years.

Finally done with this beast of a book! Would recommend if interested in Italian fairy tales.

The folktales were fun, but strange. A few at a time is good. That book is way too big to sit and read one acid dream after another.

I was just taking a little stroll on a rainbow. I'll be right down.

One word review : Charming!

Italo Calvino sets out here to salvage the treasure trove of popular wisdom, his inspiration in the monumental works of the likes of Brothers Grimm, Perrault, Andersen or Afanasiev. The result is this collection of very Italian and very amusing folklore collected from dusty library shelves by previous ethnographers and polished up by Calvino. He adds his personal touch of wry humour and subversive mischief to make the lecture appealing to both children and adults. Alternatively, Calvino's style and the Italian cultural identity were born in his early immersion in the oral traditions of Italian storytelling

I'm not going to review each little tale separately : they are quite short and share a lot of common traits, or local colour, that make them encapsulate the true peasant spirit of the peninsula. What struck me as I was trying to identify these common traits are the numerous cases of explicit, gleeful violence – something that has been purged from the original Grimm or Perrault by the likes of Thomas Bowlder or Walt Disney.

... and with two well-placed blows, killed them ...
... all right, then tie me to the stake and burn me in the square. That was done, and soon after that the Prince married the beautiful young girl.

Murders, auto-da-fes, illicit affairs and others assorted cardinal sins keep cropping up alongside tales clearly inspired from the Catholic church teachings. Even more often the heroes are either outlaws (robbers, criminals, liars) or wily peasants running rings around the police or the lords.

Now don't tell anyone about this because if the police knew about it they'd send both of us to jail.

Calvino is clearly rooting for the underdog in his selection of folk tales. The happy endings, more often than not produce not marriage, children and 'happy-ever-after', but winning the lottery by nobodies beings smarter and faster on their feet than their betters.

Then he returned home and everything he did was successful, so that he soon became rich.

Some of the tales, especially the ones featuring the popular buffoon named Giufa, can be found in other cultures with very little variation. In Romania his name is "Pãcalã", in Turkey and other Oriental cultures "Nasstratin Hogea"

Work and Giufa didn't mix. After enjoying a late breakfast, he would stroll out into the street and loaf around.

Nasstratin quote : "Eat, my little clothes, eat! For they have really invited you, not me!"


In the end, this is a very good selection of Italian folklore that is raised to the level of high literature by the master's touch of Italo Calvino.

Too many of these stories followed the same pattern: poor character is having a bad time > something semi-magical happens > character gains wealth or nobility.

For a writer with communist sympathies and an anarchist father, Calvino sure seems to (re-)tell a lot of stories that glorify kings, marriage, and wealth.

200 folktales ... I feel like I have completed a major reading project.

Reading folktales/fairytales, it's fun to see some of the similarities in European stories and start to pick up not only national but regional idiosyncrasies. This extensive collection of Italian tales not only has similarities to some very familiar stories but some also have threads of Arabic tales and Roman myths.
This is my first experience of Italian folktales outside of Roman mythology, so one of the things I don't really understand is the fascination with the Kings and Queens of Spain or Portugal -- they were mentioned in a great number of stories -- but this connection was never really explained.
I think my favorites were the St. Peter stories, in which he is the raucous petty Everyman, which are very humorous.

My only suggestion for this kind of anthology is that the organization of the stories could have been better -- by region or group similar stories together with their regional variations. There is a section at the end of Author's notes in which Calvino explains where he found each story or added some additional information. For me, these would have been more helpful to be placed by each tale instead of a section at the end of the book.


"And tbere they lived a life happy and long,
But nothing did they ever give me for my song."

Most traditional stories were past down from generation to generation in an oral tradition which made for well paced and entertaining stories. Sadly they are often retold in the hands of someone with a pace that is comparable to a three legged horse in a race, and sadly not as entertaining. (I know some of you are thinking I'm awful for that right now and are taking a moment to think the worst of me.) Thankfully, Italo Calvino lent his hand to the collecting and retelling of Italian folktales and so all the stories in this book have his excellent gift for entertaining telling. This helps at times where the stories run the risk of sounding otherwise repetitive, which happens often in folktales. Most often collections of folk tales are either slim volumes of a few stories that have been continuously recycled or you have to buy several books in a series to obtain the complete collection by a certain editor. This book weighs in at 800 pages and so you can sit rooted in the same spot for days while reading all of the stories. I don't actually recommend doing that. Here is how I propose you read stories from the book: Prepare a pot of whatever warm beverage tickles your fancy, (this can be anything from mulled cider to tea to coffee), find the most comfortable place in the house, (if you are pet owner this will be the place that your cat or dog is likely already occupying in this case you must displace them), make sure that the only noise that may disrupt you is from the local wildlife outside your window, if you have other people to read with or to gather them as well only make sure they don't take your comfy spot, open the book, read the introduction, (well being realistic you will nobly try and read it for two sentences, then you will skim for a couple of paragraphs and then you will give up), and begin with the first story. It's okay to take the occasional break from reading the tales however I recommend that you do not give it up for more than a few minutes at a time! If you have your doubts about how good this collection might be I'll have you know that this book is so well liked that I have had it stolen from me, twice. So please go out and invest the money into your own copy of the book and leave mine to my bookshelf!

I return often to this delightful book, as to a spring of pure water. Calvino is one of my favorite authors, a wildly inventive, witty, sly teller of tales. In this collection of Italian folktales, all derived from scholarly collections but delivered in Calvino's inimitable voice, one can see the sources of his storytelling wizardry. Among his many books, the ones I most highly recommend are Invisible Cities, Cosmicomics, and Six Memos for the Next Millennium.

These were the stories (and the book) that my father used to read to me as a child. Since I purchased the book a few years ago, I have revisited several of sections of the book to refresh my memory and relive a bit of my childhood. I intend to read these to my childred as they get old enough to sit still through a short story without pictures.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my folk/fairy tales (not the Disney kind, but the real, kind of horrific at times, yet magical and beautiful). So it really isn't any wonder that I adored this collection and will be adding it to my book shelves permanently. What a superb collection of tales Calvino has supplied for us! I particularly like that at the end of the book he provides a bit more background for each tale.

I read this book aloud to my 6 year old (now 7) daughter over a period of 4 months. We looked forward to each tale discerning the structural patterns of many of the tales. The book unleashed my daughter's own storytelling creativity. Italian Folktales have considerable overlap with the Grimm Tales. I'm currently reading the unabridged Grimm Tales to my daughter.

Calvino is a brilliant writer and it is easy to see how the tales influenced his classic works such as Baron in the Trees. I would recommend the tales for children and adults alike.

These are some seriously crazy fairy tales.

I finally finished this book.

I've been reading it, with varying degrees of intensity, since early 2004.

It is a 700+ page book of 200 folktales with notes and intros.

I tried to read one fairy tale every day. I failed that goal, but I came close at times.

These stories were so crazy, and yet most echoed motifs and structures of the fairy tales of other cultures.

I am so completely fascinated with the psychological need in society that has perpetuated these stories through the ages and cross cultures. I keep wondering if there is a meta-story, a pure fairy tale that is the root of all fairy tale, somewhere out there . . . something that I can spend my existence looking for. Like the Anti-Life Equation.

- Kohl
February 19, 2008