Review of The Complete Cosmicomics by by Italo Calvino

A collection of more than 30 stories by one of the masters of Italian literature.

The germs for other works are present in this collection, including Invisible Cities and Castle of Crossed Destinies. The most interesting and delightful tales are toward the beginning in my opinion. As the collection wore on, it veered into more mathematical semantics than storytelling. A few of the stories were outright inane and semi-unreadable. Instead of enjoyment a persistent annoyance set in. I am thinking of the one where the author creates sign board for distant galaxies to view. Or the one about the gambling addict who creates a bet out of every conceivable event in universal history. If you ask me, these were downright silly and not worth reading. Others are even less memorable because they lack any named characters and read like X interacting with Y for the purpose of Z. He is critiquing the generic nature of a lot of stories, but that level of obvious spoof is nothing revolutionary in my opinion. I remember a Margaret Atwood story that did the same thing. Anyone can craft an outline out of X meets Y, who is married to Z and has two children named A and B, and go on like that for pages. It’s not interesting.

The multilayered satire in other areas must be commended though. For even when he sacrifices traditional storytelling techniques and succumbs to tedious spinning out of abstract concepts and descriptions of repetitive patterns, he brings a wild and inventive approach to the composition of the work.

These were collected from smaller editions and lumped together, so the longer you dwell in the mode of the stories the more likely you are to grow weary of them. But a few shining examples of his art stand out among them, including the tale about people drawing milk from the moon. I would have liked more fables or cautionary tales. When he grounds his storytelling in relatable characters or interesting world building, actually giving them a setting, I believe he easily captures the imagination and touches the soul. I picked up Calvino’s 800-page book of Italian folktales in the hopes of benefiting from his ability to conjure strange sights and sensations.

Calvino and Borges are the prime examples of genre fiction which crossed the bridge permanently into literature. When you look at the majority of what they wrote, it’s all fantasy. Yet, try and convince elitist critics that other fantasy authors are literature and they usually draw the line at Le Guin or Ballard. But what is the real difference between what Calvino did in his stories compared to Lafferty or Theodore Sturgeon? And so I consider genre works as important as classics. Whenever I hear people say I don’t read fantasy or science fiction, I just wonder why. What makes them think there’s nothing for them in that so-called genre?

That’s why I try to read widely and not draw distinctions between genres like the publishing industry tends to do.

Calvino was interested in how far you can push a story. How much can you challenge the reader’s imagination. On occasion it is a strain to read him, but more often than not it is a rewarding experience to encounter his works. Think of the Cloven Viscount and the Nonexistent Knight – technically those books follow the Cosmicomic format where he expounds on a scientific principle of concept – in these cases in a more dreamlike fashion – and extrapolates the consequences through fun characters and interactions within a historical setting.

In Calvino’s time a lot of these ideas were more new and revolutionary than they are now. I imagine a lot fewer people understood cell division, meteors, the interactions of atoms, and possibly evolution. The way he ropes in myths like Eurydice are more foreign to our current culture perhaps. That causes some of the scientific “wow” moments to fizzle for us readers, along with some of the experimental fireworks. After the Oulipo and post-modernism, I really just want to be lost in a story, not amazed by a writer’s bold and repetitive demonstration of a literary device.

But again, Calvino succeeds in jumpstarting the imagination and remains a favorite.