Twelve totally enchanting tales about the evolution of the universe. This book is a good set of fanciful stories that a father can use to answer his son’s never-ending questions about the moon, the sun and everything up in the sky.

This is my third book by Italo Calvino and he still to disappoint me. Like Milan Kundera, he also does not re-write himself. He was a league of his own - writing about a unfinished manuscript being read by you, the reader - in If on a winter’s night a traveler. He looked back and went medieval and talked about tarot cards in A Castle of Crossed Destinies. Now, he looked up in the sky, brought out his astronomy book and wrote a book belonging to a sci-fi sub-genre called n  intellectual fantasy:n his 1965 collection of short stories, Cosmicomics.

In the beginning, before the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe was concentrated in a single point. As his narrator Qfwfq says: ”Where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?” Then Calvino tells his story about the creation of the universe just like the story in Genesis not in the way Moses (Genesis being the first book of Moses) but in a playful manner with his non-human characters whose names are mathematical symbols or algorithms doing out-of-this-world activities like putting ladder to climb up to the moon or throwing atoms just like how we threw balls up in the sky when we were kids. Calvino’s style here reminds me a lot of Salman Rushdie’s brand of magical realism not using real people (like G. G. Marquez) but more of make-believe characters that adds to the magic and uniqueness of the story. In fact, this is what Salman says about the book:

n   “I first read Cosmicomics in my early 20s, and it's a book I've gone back to again and again. It is possibly the most enjoyable story collection ever written, a book that will frequently make you laugh out loud at its mischievous mastery, capricious ingenuity and nerve.”n

My favorite among the 12 stories is the first one: The Distance of the Moon where the moon and earth are still closed to each other and men can put up a ladder to climb to the moon. The close proximity of the moon and earth reminded me of the local legend told to us by our teachers here in the Philippines: that there was a man who had to use a wooden mortar and pestle to remove husk from the palay and produce rice. That every time he did that the sky became high and high until it became as far and high as it appears now.

The books reminds me that there is no boring topic only boring novelists. Who would have thought that there could still be interesting stories that can be told about the sky? Especially at night, when you look up and all you can see are darkness and some small blinking tired stars? There is nothing dated about the stories and because he based each story on actual astronomical facts, everything makes sense. Just use your imagination and ride with Calvino in his make-believe flight. Probably humming a bit of Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon might also add some spice while reading some of the stories.

Premettendo che questa non vuole essere una recensione per incoraggiarvi a leggere questo libro, quanto un puro omaggio a Calvino per avermi permesso di confrontarmi con una mente tanto aperta e viaggiare insieme ad essa, mi accontento di dire che le Cosmicomiche sono uno puro trip mentale che soddisferà chiunque sia affascinato dal filo sottile che distingue la pseudofilosofia dalla pseudoscienza, in un dibattito tra la materia e non materia, tra ciò che è dimostrato e cioè che è possibile e impossibile insieme, e pertanto ottimo spunto per riflessioni tanto attuali e concrete quanto metafisiche e puramente astratte. Lo ho amato.

this was a huge disappointment after If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. a few of the stories might be perfect for a bed-time story for a very precocious 9-year-old, if the parent had the background to explain the science. but not enough good science for a science nerd(me), and i think too much science for a normal person. too much fairy-tale language for an adult(me), but too much technical language for a kid. some of the ideas were great, and i would enjoy the first page or two, but quickly got very old and then i would peek ahead and would groan on seeing that i had 8 more pages left in the story.

This books is like those youthful summer nights awash in idyllic optimism and frivolity when you take mushrooms and curl up on the warm earth to stare up at the vastness of the night sky with your friends. You unhinge your mind and soar on melodies of free roaming thoughts that seemingly traverse beyond time and space, commingling with the cosmos to converse with stars and dance with infinity. Italo Calvino delivers abstract concepts as characters grappling with the universe and all the emotions that swirl within it. With hardly a human in sight, this book captures the essence of being human, of love and longing, of hope, hardships, and most importantly, the charm of creativity. A surreal collection of cosmic fables both humorous and heartbreaking, both grounded in science and escaping the chains of logic to the horizons of possibility, and brilliant imagining so playful with language it’s as if the sentences were composed of stardust twinkling above you. Lay back, open your heart and mind, and prepare for a wild, wondrous ride.

نویسنده سعی کرده بر اساس واقعیت‌های علمی (اکثرا نجومی)داستان هایی تخیلی بنویسه ولی متاسفانه موفق نبوده.
فضای داستانی و داستان پردازیش قدرتمند نیست.اضافه گویی داره.و اونطور که باید از علم برای پرداخت داستان استفاده میکرده نکرده.خیلی از داستانا کاملا بی هدفن طوری که وقتی تموم میشن میگی خب که چی؟
ولی ایده‌ی اولیه‌ی داستان‌ها رو دوست داشتم.
جدا از همه ی اینا ترجمه تعریف چندانی نداره.خیلی جاها باید یه صفحه رو دوبار خوند تا متوجه منظور نویسنده شد.
در کل پیشنهادم اینه که از این کتاب دوتا داستان دایی آبزی و فاصله‌ی ماه رو بخونین.

Calvino opened this beautiful little collection with "The Distance of the Moon," a tale from the days when the lunar landscape could be reached with nothing more than a ladder and some well-timed gymnastics, so it struck me as appropriate that I began reading “Cosmicomics” on the night of a full moon.

I had its richly resonant first two stories running through my head while driving home from work that evening. The first half of my commute is a journey illuminated by the artificial lights of both commerce and my fellow impatient motorists before giving way to a monotonous stretch of interstate road, offering precious few spots of gap-toothed skyline that allow the evening sky to break through; one of these infrequent openings offered a glimpse of the looming, swollen moon. The distortion of a full lunar sphere just beginning its ascent, an engorged orb hanging so low and heavy that she could pass for the grandest part of the man-made horizon, is one of my favorite displays offered by my favorite celestial phenomenon: I’ve had a particular affinity for the full moon ever since I discovered that unusually well-lit nighttime walks were the most reliable antidote for my teenage moodiness. The optical illusion that makes a low moon loom gigantically renders a familiar sight unusual, and stealing a few glances of it during my daily trek lent a tangibility to Calvino's story I wasn't expecting but didn't really surprise me. This would not be the first (and I sincerely doubt the last) time I couldn't help but apply Calvino's vision to a real-world occurrence.

These stories make the kind of sense that dreams do, in a way. While clearly mismatched words don’t rhyme upon waking as they do in nocturnal narratives and the person who represents a singular entity in sleep becomes an obviously symbolic amalgamation of strangers and forgotten friends once the dreamer is jarred into consciousness, the creation myths Calvino weaves into dazzling truths actually do hold up upon further examination, even if they do require the occasional suspension of disbelief; still, who’s to say the cosmos and the population that arose with it adhere to the same stringent reality we’ve come to accept?

While the formative years of the cosmic terrain -- the Earth and its lunar satellite included -- are decidedly alien in their lack of familiar concepts (just as our commonalities were novel then: "You understand? It was the first time. There had never been things to play with before. And how could we have played? With that pap of gaseous matter?"), the inhabitants' stumbling confusion about what's going on but solid certainty that whatever's happening is important didn't require a leap of imagination to understand. Calvino imbued his cast of nonhuman characters with decidedly human curiosity and incredibly human failings, which helps to ground an otherwise ethereal collection of interweaving tales in achingly relatable terms.

What struck me most about this book is how actively shameful impulses have shaped and driven self-aware creatures since, quite literally, there have been self-aware beings in a position to affect their environment. Those jealousies, those prejudices, and most of all those proud insecurities were allowed to reach a boiling point and bubbled into the external world. The effects weren't always catastrophic but they did leave lasting marks on the nascent universe. To consider that the universe as we know it (what we know of it, anyway) was crafted neither by a happy, scientifically explained accident nor the whim of just but avuncular deities, but rather some ordinary guy's selfish motives and a need to leave a cosmic "I wuz here" smear of existential proof is a perspective shift worth mulling over.

I still maintain that this is perfection in 153 pages. My second encounter with Calvino was just as fortuitous and spilled off the page into real life just as much as my first -- so much, in fact, that I bought another one of this books almost immediately upon finishing this one because I just want to glut myself on Calvino's unequaled prose. Simply, the man reminds me of what a magical experience a good book is and why reading has been one of my favorite pastimes for as long as it has. This is a quick read that demands the reader to pace him/herself to properly dwell on the densely packed splendor within.

عجیبه! خیلی عجیب!

The concept is simple: take an abstract scientific concept and bring it to life through the art of the short story. Yet what Calvino achieves in Cosmicomics is unparalleled.

The collection contains twelve short stories, each beginning with a short statement describing a scientific theory, a dry, explanatory piece of writing that feels like it could've been pulled out of an introductory astronomy (or biology) textbook. For example, the first story, "The Distance of the Moon," begins with the following passage:

At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the Moon was very close to the Earth. The the tides gradually pushed her far away: the tides that the Moon herself causes in the Earth's waters, where the Earth slowly loses energy.

Then comes the bulk of each of 10-15 page story, all but two of which are narrated by Qfwfq, a wizened old storyteller who has seen everything from the beginning of the universe and who tells it all in a down-home style that feels as if the audience has gathered around a campfire to hear tales of long-ago. For example, "The Distance of the Moon" continues thus:

How well I know! - old Qfwfq cried, - the rest of you can't remember, but I can. We had her on top of us at that time, that enormous Moon: when she was full - nights as bright as day, but with a butter-colored light - it looked as if she were going to crush us; when she was new, she rolled about the sky like a black umbrella blown by the wind...

Qfwfq then goes on to tell a story of a group of people that would take a ladder up to the moon to harvest its cheese, and of his mute cousin who felt at home only on the moon, and of the captain's wife who was in love with the cousin, and of the narrator's love for the captain's wife, and all the tragic results of the love triangle, with the moon at it center.

Each story is given a striking humanity, achieving that goal of every fiction writer: illuminating what it means to be human; yet Calvino's methods often don't involve humans, as main characters are particles of dust, evolving animals, or even mathematical formulas. The stories, I believe, can best be described as "scientific myths," i.e. not the myths of great scientific figures, but mythology based upon modern science, reinvented the past's legends with today's understanding of the universe.

Cosmicomics, like his best-known work If on a winter's night a traveler, proves that Calvino is one of the most creative, innovative writers of the 20th century, able to use complex theory effortlessly to bring forth a deceptively simple tale of the basic human emotions.

Ίσως το καλύτερο του Calvino. Ισάξιο τού "αόρατες πόλεις".

Χιούμορ και σπιρτάδα και ερωτική μελαγχολία Λατίνου εραστή σε σωστές δόσεις.

Τα καλύτερα από την συλλογή είναι σαν ταινία τού Fellini.

Το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα.

4.5/5

Qfwfq : Been there, Seen that, done that.

Been where? Where the distance of the moon from the ocean was just a ladder away.

Seen what? The formation of galaxies, A colorless world, A time when there was no concept of time.

Done what? Lived on the nebulae, Lived as a dinosaur, fallen in love with a tadpole.

A literary cosmos made up of staggering imagination, Calvino’s Cosmicomics exceeded the expectations I always have before reading any of his books and it makes me even more proud of declaring him as my favorite writer. A collection of 12 short stories, written by taking cue from random scientific facts/theories and re-telling of the fragmented tales about evolution of universe through the eyes of our narrator, Qfwfq, who had been a ubiquitous witness as well as part of everything since the universe was created. Sounds quite ambitious, especially taking the short story format, but that's where Calvino’s talent shines the brightest.

The relationship established between various scientific concepts, bizarre living beings and their lives thereof, presents a witty commentary on understanding of the environment and coming to terms with innumerable and inevitable changes that takes place in our lives in natural as well as unnatural or uncalled ways.

Compared to the uncertainties of earth and air, lagoons and seas and oceans represented a future with security.

Also there is a subtle social commentary about the nature of human beings who acknowledge world not as one but as a society governed by numerous borders and boundaries and a fine distinction is sited as to who is who according to the place they belongs to.

n   But the others also had wronged the Z'zus, to begin with, by calling them "immigrants," on the pretext that, since the others had been there first, the Z'zus had come later. This was mere unfounded prejudice -- that seems obvious to me -- because neither before nor after existed, nor any place to immigrate from, but there were those who insisted that the concept of "immigrant" could be understood in the abstract, outside of space and time.n

But most importantly, Calvino has presented a poignant and humorous take on humanly nature, feelings and emotions without employing any humans in his narrative yet there are titles and conceptions which constitute a human world.

n   There were three of them: an aunt and two uncles, all three very tall and practically identical; we never really understood which uncle was the husband and which the brother, or exactly how they were related to us: in those days there were many things that were left vague.n

All the stories accentuates a particular feature of this cosmos in a highly skillful way wherein Calvino has dilated a single idea into astounding proportions of ace story- telling and that’s why I can’t really pick a favorite story of mine. The names of the characters, especially Qfwfq are particularly interesting. According to wiki: The name "Qfwfq" is a palindrome. The name may be an allusion to the second law of thermodynamics; substituting = for f gives Q=W=Q, which describes a heat engine.

Coming from a non-science background I can’t really grasp all these scientific concepts in their entirety but still marvel at the extent to which Calvino experimented and came up with such brilliant feat of literature. This review or rather my gushy ramblings might convey a little about this book and more about my love for Calvino, so I highly recommend a more definite and fantastic review by Stephen M along with reading this book.

I must add that past and future were vague terms for me, and I couldn't make much distinction between them: my memory didn't extend beyond the interminable present of our parallel fall.

Sangat mengecewakan. Terjemahannya jelek sekali. Ini sudah kedua kalinya saya beli buku sastra yang memiliki tema sains dengan terjemahan yang mengecewakan. Pertama waktu beli terjemahan Brave New World-nya Aldous Huxley dari Bentang Pustaka. Sekarang yang ini. Terjemahan cerita sastra bertema sains terbaik masih dipegang Mimpi-Mimpi Einstein dari Alan Lightman (Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia), itu juga karena seorang sastrawan yang turun tangan langsung. Saya sarankan kepada penerbit yang mau menerbitkan cerita sastra bertema sains agar memilih penerjemah yang tepat. Sayang sekali bukunya yang tulis Italo Calvino jadi tidak terbaca sama sekali. Kira-kira seperti itu masukan dari saya.

نشاندهنده ى كيفيت بالاى علف ايتاليايى.