13 lezzetli öykü

This collection of short stories is broken up into several sections with loosely unified themes.
They are usually quirky adventures, slow-paced, but contemplative, largely outdoors, between few characters, who, in the usual fashion of this author, are not intricately described, but portrayed with a unique voice. You get the feeling that even when Calvino is not being metafictional, he's being metafictional. Even so, it is possible to enjoy this book for its soft tone alone. It has a subtle flavor, does not make great demands upon the reader, but also does not reward him with deep insights.

Calvino is remembered for his dashing experiments, but he can be appreciated for his charming storytelling. This is not his most memorable collection, but for completionists and casual members of the Calvino cult, it is quite readable.

Una serie di storie brevi, alcune così brevi che sembrerebbe impossibile che possano lasciare un segno. E invece Calvino, con la sua meravigliosa scrittura, descrive talmente bene ogni sensazione e ogni dettaglio che riesce a catapultarti in ogni racconto e a darti l'illusione che quel personaggio lo conosci da sempre.

Un viaggio nell’ incomunicabilità


Le storie di coppia de Gli amori difficili sono della natura più disparata, ma l'asse che le percorre tutte è un'ipotesi straziante: che il contatto emotivo, intimo che si dovrebbe instaurare con il partner sia impossibile.

Uomini e donne non si incontrano perché non parlano la stessa lingua, perché non riescono ad esprimere i propri sentimenti e desideri
Hanno paura di varcare il confine del silenzio con la vana speranza di prolungare le emozioni nel tempo, senza bisogno di parole, aggrappandosi agli altri sensi …

Vivono in bilico tra la la malinconia del perduto e l'epifania della felicità


Italo Calvino in pochissime parole condensa la trama, introduce i personaggi, si diverte meravigliosamente con gli ambienti e i colori, e con i dubbi, con le domande vitali che gli esseri umani si pongono sempre quando si è soli (che è di solito la maggior parte del tempo …).

Tra bisogno d’amore e assenza, Gli Amori Difficili sono malinconiche avventure dove non c’è realismo e nemmeno fantasia, ma il grande rimpianto della vita: cosa poteva essere e cosa non è stato.

I libri di Calvino hanno una freschezza che sembrano scritti ieri.

I really enjoy reading Calvino. I bought this collection for the “Adventure of a Photographer”, alone and I think that story, by itself, is worth the price of admission. Here’s a link to it: https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/c...

Overall, this is a quite nice read for Calvino fans. Early stories are more like sketches, but unmistakably the author’s. The last section, stories of love and loneliness, is more what you would expect.

Calvino’nun kısa öyküleri de çok etkileyici. On üç hikayenin her biri benzersiz. Aşk, yakınlık -aynı zamanda uzaklık-, varoluş gibi büyük kavramları basit durumlar yaratarak çok keyifli anlatmış. Bir miyobun dünyada varoluşundan, okurun kitap ile aşka sahip çıkışına pek çok ilginç konuyu çekip çıkarmış. Kitabın en belirleyici yanı anlatımı. Kelimeleri yutarcasına okudum. Müthiş bir ahenk var. Öykünün birine konuk ettiği Kayıp Zamanın İzinde’de olduğu gibi üslubu detaycılığıyla öne çıkıyor. Bir dokunuş, bir çarşaf kıvrımı böyle güzel nasıl anlatılabilir şaşkınım.

“L’amavo, insomma. Ed ero infelice. Ma come lei avrebbe mai potuto capire questa mia infelicita? Ci sono quelli che si condannano al grigiore della vita più mediocre perché hanno avuto un dolore, una sfortuna; ma ci sono anche quelli che lo fanno perché hanno avuto più fortuna di quella che si sentivano di reggere”

La tenerezza di Calvino, il suo modo poetico di saper descrivere l’indescrivibile... C’è tutto. E alcuni racconti hanno qualcosa di veramente magico per cui varrà la pena preparare i fazzoletti.

Storie di simboli e di avanguardia. Una bella raccolta che però nel suo complesso non mi ha convinta fino in fondo e a dover essere sinceri alcune “avventure” non mi sono affatto piaciute.

Pięknie napisane opowiadania, niekoniecznie bezpośrednio o miłości, bardziej o emocjach, pragnieniach i komunikacji. Nie porwały mnie tak jak tego oczekiwałem, ale czytało się to naprawdę dobrze. Porządny i lekko przewrotny zbiór.

Calvino as a storyteller comes across as a Modernist follower of one of Boccaccio’s literary personas. Both fabulists collected, edited, and reinterpreted older popular tales; both also wrote their own. For them the core of fiction could be extracted from this genre. And at least for Calvino, an Agronomist, that is where the seeds of his literary abilities germinated.

Unlike the The Decameron, Difficult loves does not have a framing story. There is however a story about the way they have been framed. My Spanish translation follows the arrangement and grouping of the Italian Einaudi edition from 1970. The English edition is different. The Italian presented thirteen very short stories under the subtitle Difficult Loves (Gli amori difficili) and a couple of longer tales under Difficult Lives (La vita difficile). The version in English does not include the last two and instead incorporates many other stories grouped as the Riviera, War and Postwar Tales.

The story behind the proper thirteen Difficult Loves also has its own suspense. They were written along a period of two decades: some during the late 40s; most of them in the 50s; and one from a much later date, 1967. This last one, the 'Adventure of a Motorist', stands out. It could not have been included in 1958 when they were grouped with many others as I Raconti (The Stories). Their titles were also generated later, when they were translated into French in 1964. They were then unified by their shared part of their individual titles. They all are ‘The Adventure of….X’.

I have expanded on this, possibly dry, account of the editorial history of Difficult Loves because I think it illustrates the difficulties of reading a collection of short stories and of gaining an opinion of the writing of any one author based on a reading experience of a few--and probably closely consecutive—sittings. Particularly when they correspond to a protracted and complex creative period as is the case with these.

To this difficulty (for it is not just the loves that are difficult) the Italian 1970 edition added another one. It included a remarkable Preface--with no signature. Surprisingly, this Preface has not been included in the English edition. Determinant for me, the Spanish edition has it and since it dates from 1989, it reveals that Calvino himself wrote it. After Calvino’s death in 1985 his heirs allowed the disclosure of his signature.

The hidden and revealed authorship transforms the Preface into an uncanny reading. He talks in third person of the influences that shaped his writing and his career. These are personal, political, ideological, philosophical and literary. He also provides a literary analysis, a criticism of his themes, style and imagery. The title and the choice of ‘Loves’ is unveiled in its significance, and the strange mixture between realism and fable as well as the tension between the rational and intellectual are also evaluated.

Providentially I left the Preface for the end reading it as a Postface. But nonetheless, this edition now seems like a mockery. Calvino, hiding his authorship, is guiding our reading of the author Calvino. No, not guiding. Kidnapping. His notorious explorations of the role and power and limitations of the author--and particularly of the reader--have been taken out of their fictional framework. Wearing the mask of conventional roles he is subverting even his Modernist experiments.

And that is why I cannot tell you my opinion of these tales. Behind mine one would be able to read the lines of the supremen   Favolatoren.

Lots to enjoy in this more serious collection - less whimsy, more 'realism' (whatever that means when we talk about something that's just a bunch of black letters on, in this case, slightly yellowed pages). It's blokey, with 'The Adventure of a Reader' and 'The Adventure of a Wife as standouts - the first the most male gazey and the second an attempt to write from a woman's perspective that reveals a little of how a man might 'read' a woman's behaviour without fully having access. Or, I suppose, anyone might try to emulate any other interiority - in this case, it's deliberately positioned by gender, so I was hyperaware of it.

I enjoyed the shorter pieces more, though Smog carried an unsettling layer of dirt on it,. The last piece, A Plunge Into Real Estate, felt sort of lumped in, neither fitting with the general love/self consciousness themes nor leading anywhere particularly interesting or insightful. It's probably this final story, a novella really, that's knocking off a star for me.