Cosmicomics

Italo Calvino was a Cuban-born Italian who wrote primarily in the latter half of the twentieth century.  Many of his stories combine elements of magical realism, fabulism and fantasy.  His most famous work is the novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, which takes his metafictional style to the extreme, interspersing several unfinished stories and chapters among one another, and establishing the reader as the main protagonist.  It’s a must-read if you like quirky, postmodern writing that tears down the meaning of story, and skirts the boundary between fact and fiction.  It is, however, lacking in real emotive feeling or strong characters.  Calvino is, in my opinion, at his best when writing short stories, and one of his best collections is called Cosmicomics.

Each of the stories in Cosmicomics is based on a scientific theory of the universe.  Some of the stories here neglect plot in favour of exposition, becoming more like the descriptions of worlds found in Calvino's equally brilliant Invisible Cities, but even these stories are a joy to read, since Calvino explores the possibilities of each theory with such depth and imagination that often it's like reading a tour guide to a fascinating alternative universe.  But the stories where he manages to instill a sense of conflict and determination from his central character (every story is told in the first person) are the real shining moments for me, whether it's an evolved fish trying to persuade his stubborn old uncle to leave the seas and join him on land, or the man plummeting through space for millions of years desperately attempting to embrace a nearby falling woman.  I've always loved Calvino's work, but this book gave me exactly what I always thought was lacking in his writing before, emotions that the reader can identify with rather than just pure intellectual contemplation.  That's still there, too, and as always it's expressed with the most brilliant prose, but I was glad to feel a lot more drama between his main characters this time round.  I’d highly recommend this to anyone new to Calvino, as it's accessible, short and easily one of his best works.