Ήταν ΟΚ. Τίποτα το ιδιαίτερο. Κάποια από τα διηγήματα μου άρεσαν, κάποιες σκόρπιες σκέψεις τις βρήκα ενδιαφέρουσες - μέχρι εκεί. Βαρέθηκα, όμως. Ανυπομονούσα να τελειώσω το βιβλίο για να ξεκινήσω κάποιο άλλο. Ίσως δεν είναι αντιπροσωπευτικό της γραφής του Καλβίνο. Βασικά, ελπίζω να μην είναι.

Raccolta di racconti superba.

Calvino con il suo stile melodioso ci parla della difficoltà di comunicazione tra uomo e donna, la difficoltà di interazione tra l'individuo e la società.
La difficoltà dell’uomo, il suo sforzo di vedere la realtà, di affermare il proprio io, trovarsi, capire, dialogare e parlare: l’incomunicabilità.

Although not as brilliant or imaginative as other collections of the author, Difficult Loves certainly deserves a reading by those who enjoy Calvino's prose. Here Calvino is not interested in imaginary cities or parallel universes but speaks about contemporary daily life with its usual dose of humor and bitterness as well as some surrealistic bits. The quality of the stories knows highs and lows, but Calvino's ability to expand deep thoughts from a bathing suit lost at sea or from a one-night stand helps you remember what a great storyteller he was.

Великан е Калвино и тук. :) Еталон за писане на разкази. Кратки, с елегантен хумор, леееко абсурдистки, но с постоянно намигане към поезията и най-важното: умело дълбаене в човешката психика и нейните често нелепи страхове и срамове, разказани на фона на възможно най-битовата всекидневна ситуация.

Всички истории без последните две са със заглавие "Приключението на..." един читател, един поет, една съпруга и т.н. И точно това е интересното, че доста от тези "приключения" сме ги преживявали всички под една или друга форма във всекидневното живеене.

Та, да, отново се прокрадва една от любимите ми идеи за кои точно са "изключителните" моменти и как понякога пътуването в трамвая, возенето в асансьора или нещо точно толкова тривиално може да се окаже паметно и то заради някой уж обикновен разговор.

Голяма част от разказите ги виждам като късо кино, не знам. А разказът "Приключението на един фотограф" със сигурност ще се услади на любителите на философския уклон в худ. литература.

Сборникът завършва с две новели, доста по-дълги от кратките истории преди това, където фокусът е тотално различен, но също ми харесаха много, особено поетичните, силно образни финали.
Препоръчвам :)

Tenho sempre dificuldade em classificar contos, dado que normalmente gosto muito de uns e de outros nem por isso. Aqui também aconteceu, sendo que no entanto o balanço é positivo. A brutal capacidade de transformar pequenos episódios, às vezes pequeníssimos, numa viagem de análise de emoções é incrível.

Sono una raccolta di racconti di come una coppia non si incontra e tutte le dinamiche che questo scatena e comporta. Sono racconti molto brevi, tranne gli ultimi due, i più lunghi, dal titolo "La formica argentina" e "La nuvola di smog" che raccontano, attraverso la metafora della formica, appunto e dello smog che ingurgita tutto, il male di vivere.
Calvino descrive varie avventure, ora della moglie, dei due sposini, di un lettore che tracciano il senso di ogni storia e della loro quotidianità. Sono storie che non sempre riescono a trovare il loro lieto fine, non tutti riescono a coronare il loro sogno d'amore e raggiungere l'oggetto del desiderio. In alcuni, il viaggio - sia fisico che spirituale - che abbraccia la sfera onirica, a volte è più importante della meta, del risultato da raggiungere.
Un viaggio nelle emozioni, sensazioni che diventano sublimi, dolci, ma mai smielate in storie in cui ognuno può rispecchiarsi e trovare un pezzo di se stesso.

Преди години прочетох "Нашите предци" и Калвино ми се стори магичен и вълнуващ. Разказите от "Трудни любови" имат чар и писането е все така хубаво, но не ми харесаха толкова. Тук ми липсва магическото от "Нашите предци" и преобладава ежедневието с малките неволи, несполуки и проблеми, които за героите са гигантски, разбирам защо и Калвино ги разказва, но ми бяха скучни.

4,5

It would be something of  a misnomer to categorise this loose collection of short stories as novellas on love; the stories mainly concentrate on vaguely diffident young and middle-aged men who are seeking some form of gratification; whether it be romantic love, the gratification of finishing a book whilst being harangued by an attractive woman on a beach or of living la dolce vita in Rome.

Calvino suffuses his style with a sense of lightness and poetry; his words caress the page and the images he conjures delight the reader-if I was to think of a word which categories Calvino's style it would be whimsy, as whiffs of beauty are interspersed with the quotidian concerns of the nonentities who populate his novel, the ephemeral flickers of beauty which the characters experience serve to ignite the melancholy of his narrators;

"The sky could be seen above the roof, no longer limpid, but bleached, covered by an opaque patina, as in Gnei's memory and opaque whiteness was wiping out every memory of sensations, and the presence of the sun was marked by a vague, still patch of light, like a secret pang of grief."

These flickers of beauty are interspersed with the long, often rambling studies of the narrator's inner lives. Whether it is Gnei and the one night stand which rouses him out of his stupor, but whose excitement he is unable to articulate to anybody (so Calvino does it for him) or the idle and somewhat hopeless brothers Ampelio and Quinto  and their financial dealings with the sly and vituperative Caisotti, there is little aim or meaning to Calvino's stories outside of the emotional journeys which the characters go on-the stories act as exercises or Calvino to demonstrate his story-telling abilities and his creativity, blank canvasses which Calvino is able to paint with his wonderful imagination and uninimitable eye.

"Now he was on guard, as if every degree of perfection that nature, around him, achieved-a decanting of the blue of the water, a languishing of the coast's green into gray, the flash of a fish's fin at the very expanse where the sea was most smooth-were only heralding another, higher degree, and so on, the point where the invisible line of the horizon would part like an oyster revealing all of a sudden a different planet or world."

n   People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.n

You, Mr. Calvino! I’ll never forget how this book made me feel.

An immensely gifted writer, Calvino displayed his genius in this collection by plucking the ignored or trivial fragments of moments we experience at one point or another in our lives and weaved them together to present these gems of short stories. How vividly he captured the minute happenings around us and served us some riveting tales makes me revered in awe of him.

There is some confusion in regards to the edition of this book as I gathered from other reviews here that most of them have read the edition containing following four parts:

Riviera Stories, Wartime stories, Post-war stories, and Stories of Love and Loneliness.

Mine edition however has three sections namely:

Difficult loves (Stories of Love and Loneliness), Smog and A Plunge into Real Estate.

Difficult Loves is the highlight of this collection containing 11 short stories ranging between 4-10 pages and every single one of them wowed me by their brevity and impactful writing. And kindly don’t compare this book with Italo’s other works like If on a winters’ night…, or Invisible Cities. There is no wild imagination on display here but rather simple, accessible writing about simple people. With each story, Calvino gracefully unearths the most complicated emotions buried deep inside various characters and talks about loves that are difficult to embrace in the world driven by conventions and morals. A married woman desires to have a good time without her husband, a reader who wants to read, just read, a near-sighted man’s adventure to adjust and accept the inevitable changes a piece of accessory brought to his personality and consequently his life, a photographer who wants to capture every single moment in his camera, so on and so forth. The underlying theme remains the same. Love. Love for someone and for something and difficulty to proclaim that love and carrying on one’s life with or without such proclamation.

Smog revolves around a man who re-locates to a different city which has for long been victimized of industrial pollution and how he got used to the so-called polluted air around him and consequently made him see the difference between human beings he had known for life and those whom he had known for a short period of time and how in the process he started noticing things he had long ignored throughout his life. Calvino has beautifully captured the love story between two characters which again is not according to the conventional standards of love. A passage I particularly liked:

"In other words, I loved her. And I was unhappy. But how could she understood this unhappiness of mine? There are those who condemn themselves to the most gray, mediocre life because they have suffered some misfortune; but there are also those who do the same thing because their good fortune is greater than they feel they can sustain."

A Plunge into Real Estate depicts the story of a family who in order to better their economic conditions gets involved in business with a real estate agent and how Quinto, the protagonist started experiencing the implication of material world in his life. This story in my opinion is a generalized take on Italian Economy during 1950’s in general and bourgeois class in particular but again it’s an engaging tale that entails that society builds character and shapes our beliefs in the most unlikely circumstances.

Calvino lovingly carries his readers alongside him, and makes them experience the world through his words and makes them experience their own world through his creativity. After reading Difficult Loves, I can easily say that he’s one of the most versatile Writers I’ve read. An ideal companion, who understands you and makes you understand him by displaying virtuosity of a master story-teller.

Calvino’nun bilgisi dahilinde olmadan, öykülerinin yayınevi tarafından biraraya getirildiği bir kitap.
Öykü okumak zordur.
Kısa süreli odaklanma, karakterlere hızlı adaptasyon gerektirir.
Poliklinikte hasta arasında okunacak kitaplardan değil yani Zor Sevdalar.
Ama ben okurum:)
Öyle sulu, yapışkan romantik öyküler beklemeyiniz kitaptan.
Bazen karısı gelmeden önce yatacağı tarafı ısıtan bir eşi anlatan basit ama etkili duygular var bu öykülerde.
Uzun mesafelerin, iletişememenin, sessizliğin, dolaylı sevgilerin, olanaksız tutkuların 5-10 sayfalık 13 öykü ile kaleme dökülmüş hali.
Herkes özüne yakın hissettiğini sevebilir pek tabi bu öykülerden.
Benim favorilerim; fotoğrafçının, okurun ve miyobun serüveni oldu:)

To były ciekawe dość krótkie teksty, choć miejscami nie rozumiałam zachowania bohaterów.
Język jednak wspaniały!
Nie ma miłości, ale doceniam.