'if on a winter's night a traveler': embracing postmodernism, or hoisting it on its own thingamajig?

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/021_02/13283

The sensational quality (and here I mean the sensations one feels when encountering a book by an author who killed herself upon its completion) of its content in relation to its seeming parallels with Qiu Miaojin’s life is an inextricable part of the reading. The book is an entirely postmodern act.

'Postmodern' clearly not doing much these days...doubt it could've been this calculated. But who knows with suicide..

Marcovaldo is easily my favorite of his books. Harry Mathews has an essay about Calvino's funeral in which a whole class of schoolkids come, saddened over the loss of Marcovaldo's creator.

I'd like to read this essay?

Marcovaldo is in my top 3 Calvino for sure. If... Traveller never was, but it was a long time ago that I read it, I was much younger; in fact it seems like a really good idea to read it again ASAP.

Someone upthread otm about how Calvino, of the ludic authors, never wants to mistake the ball for the game. That's why I love him the most.

When you understand what the pinefox was saying, that is an early warning sign.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 22 January 2005 09:06 (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I´m looking forward to read his letters book (now available in Penguin pocket as well). Both Vintage and Penguin have his work in print, but the contents and the titles of the books vary sometimes - very irritating sometimes. ´Six Memos for the Next Millenium´ is a great read for how he explains his working methods for constructing his stories.

Six Memos totally rules