Difficult games : a reading of I racconti by Italo Calvino / Franco Ricci.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ricci, Franco, 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Calvino, Italo. Racconti.

Calvino, Italo.

Calvino, Italo--Criticism and interpretation.

Italian literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 131 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, c1990.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Examining Calvino's literary experiments as a young artist in search of his narrative voice, Ricci explores the psychological and existential motivations intrinsically linked to the writer's need for textual and systemic patterning. I racconti contains some of Calvino's least-read works, yet these early stories address issues, present scenarios and generate a growing variation of themes that form the heart of Calvino's narrative discourse. Ricci points out that melancholy permeates Calvino's works—even at his most playful. He suggests that if Calvino's highest merit was his sense of wonder and his urge to transform and defeat obscurantism with all the joy he could muster, one must remember that his work expressed, often painfully, the limits of human rationalism. I racconti can thus be read as a catalogue of the anxieties of both the young author and postwar Italian society.

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Editorial Note; Introduction; Chapter One: I Racconti; Chapter Two: ""Difficult Idylls"": The Evanescence of Paradise; Chapter Three: ""Difficult Memories"": The Tightrope of Time; Chapter Four: ""Difficult Loves"": The Elusive Self; Chapter Five: ""A Difficult Life"": Life in the Silent Labyrinth; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-127) and index.

ISBN:

9786613810809

9781554585755

1554585759

9781282233065

1282233068

9780889206342

0889206341

OCLC:

243574886