I read the cloven viscount for school but it was pretty interesting altogether, I really enjoyed the juxtaposition and allegories shown in this short story. It was hard to understand a little and keep up with the ever developing plot, but I got it after some time.

Better and more like a novel than cloven viscount. The characters are set up to distinguish different ways to prove existence. Again this book fell into the allegorical fantasy trap and does not serve anything more than that. It is absurd and entertaining, reflecting certain conflicts in our modern life such as alienation.

I am not a big fan of The Nonexistent Knight - seemed like he was trying to do too much with many characters. I did quite enjoy The Cloven Viscount.

I haven't laughed at an idea expressed in a very subtle way - for a long time. An absurd literature can be read with pleasure, when it takes a new look, on a contemporary reality, with humour and irony of the best quality.
Calvino's story tells the story of the ideal man, whose only flaw is that he does not exist.
From the first pages, my patience was put to the test, Calvino starting from an inconceivable premise, taking into account the justification that the knight brings in support of his existence, despite the non-existence of his body, and wich is one of a spiritual order, it existing exclusively by the power of the will.
Given the position of the character, who realizes that no one loves him precisely because of his perfection, the whole story seems to me conceived in a quite ironic note. The knight is the symbol of divinity, which - although immaterial - complexes mortals through the perfection of his appearance.
The novel becomes even more funny at the moment of the appearance of an inverse of the knight ,Gurdulu , the character who - although he has a body - does not exist. For a practicioner in theology, his presence could easily be likened to that of the devil in a permanent metamorphosis. The union of the two only results in some of the funniest messes. The characters manage to carry you through the entire history of literature and philosophy - in an absolutely delightful way.
Whether you think of Bible, Plato or Kant, the novel always surprises through interpretations that give new dimensions to a remarkable text.

" No, writing has not changed me for the better at all. I have merely used up part of my restless, conscienceless youth. What value to me will these discontented pages be ? The book, the vow, are worth no more than one is worth oneself. One can never be sure of saving one's soul by writing. One may go writing on and on with a soul already lost. "
That says a lot about Calvino, the man.

Could give this a 3.5. Not possible tho so… rounding down bc mad. Both stories were just fine. I got the dynamic of perfect being impossible, saw the examples of the knight, though perfect, not being able to do human jobs and just wasn’t that shocked or impressed by the story around it. I think the most interesting part of the nonexistent knight was the parts written in the first person by the nun in the beginning of each chapter. Cool twist too

The cloven viscount was not my favorite either. It just seemed sooo cheesy. Maybe just so focused on being funny that I couldn’t get a message out of it which it seems to me Calvino is often trying to convey. Obviously there is plenty of room for purely satirical work and if this is that I guess I simply wasn’t expecting it.

Fun in the same vein as Calvino's "The Baron in the Trees."

In the first novella, Calvino tells a story about a fastidious phantasm who is both the best and most obnoxious example of knight-errantry. When a young nihilist challenges his credentials, the nonexistent knight goes on a quest to prove that he deserves his title. (Because a nonexistent knight without knighthood is just nonexistent.)

Meanwhile, "The Cloven Viscount" is a fable about a ruptured royal who's split into his good and bad sides. Both sides fall for the same shepherdess and hijinks ensue.

Of course, this is Calvino -- the same author who wrote "Cosmicomics" and "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" -- so both stories are also about myth, mysticism, storytelling, the act of writing, and the nature of existence.

But both stories -- especially "The Nonexistent Knight" -- are too funny to get bogged down in their themes. For example, "Knight" has a bit about implied incest that wouldn't be out of place in Monty Python.

Calvino enjoys going high-concept and only stumbles when his conceit outweighs his story, and these novellas are well-calibrated -- even if they're not as astonishing as "Cosmicomics" or as fun as "Baron" or "Marcovaldo."

Italo Calvino is a brilliant comic writer, and I love reading his tales, which seem plucked from the Italian countryside. He's not afraid to be bizarre, too, as in the first story, which recounts the exploits of an animate suit of armor in Charlemagne's army--so dignified and courteous, yet ambivalent of his own nonexistence. His love scenes, creaking in full, hollow armor, are quite funny. The second story involves a viscount who gets torn in half by a cannonball while fighting the Ottoman Turks. One half returns home in a wicked state, while the other half returns, entirely virtuous. Now, at times while reading I wonder, why didn't I think of this? With Italo Calvino, that's never a worry. The stories gallop towards you from a great distance and a strange land, but the warmth of the voice and its gentle, ironic humor, are enough to tickle you up-close.

Read this last year then didn't write it up. I recall relishing The Nonexistent Knight, but reading The Cloven Viscount, while tired in an airport just counting down the pages until its predictable end.

Really good, functions both as funny deconstructions of folktale form and viable folktales unto themselves with great cultural specificity and sense of place . Me now whenever I read a Calvino book:

https://youtu.be/MF3Hg6FBBSU

The Nonexistent Knight - 3/5
The Cloven Viscount - 4.5/5

Calvino is my master. There is no better writer of tales. I really have to give credit to this Archibald Colquhoun, who translated most of what I've read by the man.

'The Nonexistent Knight' is Calvino's funniest story. A perfectionist knight, an empty suit of armor, can only retain being from constant organization and thoughtfulness. Just thinking of this character's precision makes me smile. He sits at table with other knights, mincing his food into neat rows that he stacks and reorganizes, shifting wine from glass to glass, constantly ordering clean plates, all because he has no mouth or stomach with which to eat, and all the while correcting his knighted colleagues. Without a doubt, this story has the funniest seduction in the history of literature, involving a lusty noblewoman who lures knights to her castle via staged bear attack, who then proceeds to make love to a man who doesn't exist, a suit of armor that spends most of the time moving the bed for the right light.

'The Cloven Viscount' is a more gruesome story. A man's cruel side survives being separated from the rest of himself by cannonball. He hops around his homeland, administering violence, halving things with his sword so that they resemble himself.

This is all part of a trilogy that is sometimes called 'Our Ancestors' which includes the equally wonderful 'The Baron In The Trees'. Reading Calvino just makes me feel incredible, especially these novels.

Both of these are charmingly whimsical and beautifully written. Calvino resists the temptation to rationalize or explain, and the sensual details of landscape are lovely in both novellas.