WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.060 Welcome back to the Deep Dive, where we cut through 00:00:02.060 --> 00:00:05.259 the noise, take a stack of dense, often contradictory 00:00:05.259 --> 00:00:07.919 sources, and deliver the concentrated truth, 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:10.599 tailored just for you. Today we are attempting 00:00:10.599 --> 00:00:13.179 to map the, well, the impossible terrain that 00:00:13.179 --> 00:00:16.120 is the life of Italo Calvino. If you know him, 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:18.600 you probably know him as the author of Invisible 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:21.839 Cities, or If on a Winter's Night. A traveler. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.260 Right. A master architect of literary fantasy. 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:27.059 A writer of structures and strange cosmic tales. 00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:30.179 He's this certified postmodern fabulist who, 00:00:30.219 --> 00:00:32.700 by the time of his death in 1985, was the most 00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:34.899 translated contemporary Italian author in the 00:00:34.899 --> 00:00:36.899 world. And that alone tells you he was a titan. 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:41.100 But here is the critical tension, the stack of 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:43.420 contradictions we have to reconcile today. This 00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:45.939 literary giant of pure imagination started his 00:00:45.939 --> 00:00:48.619 life steeped in the most unforgiving ground -level 00:00:48.619 --> 00:00:51.840 realities. Absolutely. Our mission today is to 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:54.640 grapple with this shocking biographical switch. 00:00:54.939 --> 00:00:58.939 I mean, how does a man born in Cuba, of all places, 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:02.079 raised by scientific anarchists, a dedicated 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:04.739 communist partisan who fought for survival in 00:01:04.739 --> 00:01:07.400 the Maritime Alps, how does he transition from 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:10.799 gritty post -war neorealism into the almost mathematical 00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:14.319 purity and pure fantasy of his later work? That's 00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:16.540 the core of this deep dive, isn't it? tracing 00:01:16.540 --> 00:01:18.739 that shift. We're trying to track a mind that 00:01:18.739 --> 00:01:20.840 started out documenting a very specific harsh 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:23.879 reality, but ended up obsessed with charting 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:26.299 the edges of imagination and the mechanics of 00:01:26.299 --> 00:01:28.379 storytelling itself. We need to understand the 00:01:28.379 --> 00:01:30.859 influence of science, the burden of his politics, 00:01:30.939 --> 00:01:33.719 and that exact moment he realized the fable was 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:36.079 the only structure large enough to contain all 00:01:36.079 --> 00:01:38.359 of his doubts and ideas. So we'll follow that 00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:39.980 trail rigorously. We're going to start with his 00:01:39.980 --> 00:01:42.239 unusual, scientifically rigid childhood in San 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:44.239 Remo, move through the crucible of the World 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.140 War II resistance, right up to the rarefied intellectual 00:01:47.140 --> 00:01:50.060 heir of Paris' Oulipo group. And finally, his 00:01:50.060 --> 00:01:52.200 lasting legacy, which is etched not just onto 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.200 the page, but onto the surface of the planet 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:56.379 Mercury. Okay, so let's start with the beginnings, 00:01:56.500 --> 00:01:58.980 which, as you said, immediately announce a paradox. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.519 Calvino was born Italo Giovanni Calvino Mammelli 00:02:03.519 --> 00:02:08.759 on October 15th, 1923, not in Italy, but in Santiago 00:02:08.759 --> 00:02:12.319 de Las Vegas, a suburb of Havana, Cuba. It's 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:15.340 an immediately exotic and paradoxical origin 00:02:15.340 --> 00:02:17.680 for a figure who would become a defining voice 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.280 of Italian letters, you know. Completely. And 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:23.280 his name itself, Italo. Right. His parents gave 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:25.280 to him specifically to remind him of his Italian 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:27.800 heritage since he was born abroad. But Calvino 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:30.039 later reflected that he thought it sounded belligerently 00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:32.280 nationalist. Which suggests an early resistance 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:36.139 to any kind of inherited, imposed identity. And 00:02:36.139 --> 00:02:37.699 that makes perfect sense when you look at his 00:02:37.699 --> 00:02:39.319 parents. They were anything but conventional 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:42.000 nationalists. Oh, not at all. They were intellectual 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:45.280 firebrands steeped in radical politics, anti 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:48.120 -clericalism, and above all, science. They really 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:50.280 defined his entire early universe. Let's get 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.000 into that. His father, Mario. Mario Calvino. 00:02:53.139 --> 00:02:55.560 He's a tropical agronomist and a botanist. He'd 00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:57.740 been born in San Remo, Italy, but had emigrated 00:02:57.740 --> 00:03:00.819 for scientific purposes, first to Mexico in 1909. 00:03:01.159 --> 00:03:02.879 And lived through the Mexican Revolution there. 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:05.800 Exactly. And then he moved on to Cuba in 1917 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:08.680 to conduct scientific experiments related to 00:03:08.680 --> 00:03:11.759 sugar production and botany. And Mario's political 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:14.319 past is just central to understanding the home 00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:17.150 environment. Calvino noted in an essay that his 00:03:17.150 --> 00:03:20.009 father, quote, had been in his youth an anarchist, 00:03:20.050 --> 00:03:22.129 a follower of Kropotkin, and then a socialist 00:03:22.129 --> 00:03:24.689 reformist. And we should pause on Kropotkin for 00:03:24.689 --> 00:03:26.930 a second because it's important. Peter Kropotkin 00:03:26.930 --> 00:03:29.810 wasn't about chaos. He was an influential Russian 00:03:29.810 --> 00:03:32.889 philosopher who advocated for a kind of anarchist 00:03:32.889 --> 00:03:35.370 communism based on mutual aid and scientific 00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:38.069 principles. So Calvino's father wasn't just some 00:03:38.069 --> 00:03:41.669 vague political idealist. He believed in structured, 00:03:41.909 --> 00:03:45.310 scientifically guided social change. Entire household 00:03:45.310 --> 00:03:47.789 ideology was built on this idea of freedom, but 00:03:47.789 --> 00:03:50.169 a freedom defined by scientific rigor and social 00:03:50.169 --> 00:03:52.750 responsibility. And his mother, Eva Mamili, was 00:03:52.750 --> 00:03:55.250 equally formidable, a botanist and university 00:03:55.250 --> 00:03:57.789 professor from Sardinia. Calvino described them 00:03:57.789 --> 00:04:00.669 both as non -Catholic, pacifist, free thinkers 00:04:00.669 --> 00:04:03.370 educated in the religion of civic duty and science. 00:04:03.610 --> 00:04:06.289 That phrase, religion of civic duty and science, 00:04:06.509 --> 00:04:09.169 it just perfectly encapsulates the intellectual 00:04:09.169 --> 00:04:13.870 austerity. The dedication that must have surrounded 00:04:13.870 --> 00:04:16.189 him as a child. The family moved back to Italy 00:04:16.189 --> 00:04:19.449 in 1925, settling in San Remo on the Ligurian 00:04:19.449 --> 00:04:21.910 coast. And this Italian home wasn't just a place 00:04:21.910 --> 00:04:23.910 to live. It was a self -contained scientific 00:04:23.910 --> 00:04:26.790 utopia. It really was. They divided their time 00:04:26.790 --> 00:04:29.730 between the Villa Meridiana, which was an experimental 00:04:29.730 --> 00:04:32.009 floriculture station that doubled as their residence, 00:04:32.209 --> 00:04:35.620 and Mario's ancestral land nearby. So Calvino 00:04:35.620 --> 00:04:38.000 grew up in what was essentially a living, breathing 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.220 laboratory. His father was pioneering the cultivation 00:04:41.220 --> 00:04:44.139 of then exotic fruits like avocado and grapefruit 00:04:44.139 --> 00:04:46.639 in Italy. He was a scientist who was actively 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:49.000 trying to reshape the natural world around him. 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:51.319 He was so influential in his field that he earned 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:54.439 an entry in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 00:04:54.439 --> 00:04:56.360 for his achievements. And this is exactly where 00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:58.319 literature steals from the landscape, isn't it? 00:04:58.379 --> 00:05:01.079 Absolutely. Calvino's later fiction, particularly 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:03.139 the setting for The Baron in the Trees, where 00:05:03.139 --> 00:05:05.160 the protagonist lives his entire life up in the 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:07.819 canopy, it draws directly from this environment. 00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:11.540 He described these vast forests and luxuriant 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:14.420 fauna that came from the tree -rich family estate 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.259 where he and his brother Floriano, who became 00:05:17.259 --> 00:05:19.199 a distinguished geologist, by the way. Of course 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:21.060 he did. Where they would climb and read adventure 00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:23.720 stories for hours. But despite that scientifically 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:26.720 rich environment, we encounter the central conflict 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:29.870 of his youth. his antagonism with literature. 00:05:30.610 --> 00:05:33.069 Calvino felt like the black sheep of the family 00:05:33.069 --> 00:05:36.430 because his interest in stories, Rudyard Kipling's 00:05:36.430 --> 00:05:39.350 The Jungle Book, American movies, cartoons, it 00:05:39.350 --> 00:05:42.269 was all valued less than the hard sciences. This 00:05:42.269 --> 00:05:44.529 wasn't just a preference, was it? It was a deeply 00:05:44.529 --> 00:05:47.550 felt intellectual hierarchy in the home. Completely. 00:05:47.649 --> 00:05:49.810 He was expected to follow the scientific path, 00:05:50.050 --> 00:05:53.050 but his mind was drawn to narrative, to structure, 00:05:53.209 --> 00:05:55.939 to fiction. And this tension is just beautifully 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:59.160 articulated in his memoir, The Road to San Giovanni. 00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:00.800 Tell us about that, because it's so often the 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:03.180 silence, you know, the gap in communication that 00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:05.699 really defines a writer's need to express themselves. 00:06:05.899 --> 00:06:08.379 Yeah. He describes this fundamental communication 00:06:08.379 --> 00:06:11.939 chasm with his father. He wrote, and I'm paraphrasing 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:14.079 here, that talking to each other was difficult, 00:06:14.259 --> 00:06:17.759 both verbose by nature, possessed of an ocean 00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:20.529 of words. In each other's presence, we became 00:06:20.529 --> 00:06:23.870 mute. Wow. We would walk in silence side by side 00:06:23.870 --> 00:06:26.430 along the road to San Giovanni. It suggests this 00:06:26.430 --> 00:06:29.589 fundamental, almost generational disconnect between 00:06:29.589 --> 00:06:32.529 the man of proven science and the boy of unproven 00:06:32.529 --> 00:06:35.730 imagination. That silence is just so palpable. 00:06:35.870 --> 00:06:37.829 It's this yearning for connection that couldn't 00:06:37.829 --> 00:06:40.389 be satisfied by facts or scientific diagrams. 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:43.230 But what's so fascinating to me is that while 00:06:43.230 --> 00:06:46.230 Calvino rejected the subject of science, he absolutely 00:06:46.230 --> 00:06:50.709 absorbed the methodology. Yes. His later literary 00:06:50.709 --> 00:06:53.670 world is not chaotic at all. It is meticulously 00:06:53.670 --> 00:06:56.709 classified like a scientist's catalog. So maybe 00:06:56.709 --> 00:06:58.790 the real antagonism wasn't between science and 00:06:58.790 --> 00:07:01.930 literature, but between his father's fixed terrestrial 00:07:01.930 --> 00:07:04.310 focus and his own need for a more structural 00:07:04.310 --> 00:07:06.910 conceptual freedom. He internalized that demand 00:07:06.910 --> 00:07:09.529 for order. But even before he fully committed 00:07:09.529 --> 00:07:12.209 to literature, the external world, the political 00:07:12.209 --> 00:07:15.250 world, intruded violently into this scientific 00:07:15.250 --> 00:07:18.810 anarchist sanctuary. And the intrusion was visceral. 00:07:19.269 --> 00:07:22.000 Calvino's earliest memory. when he recalled with 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:25.100 perfect clarity, was a terrifying political moment. 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:27.480 He remembered a Marxist professor who had been 00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:29.920 brutally assaulted by Mussolini's black shirts, 00:07:30.100 --> 00:07:32.720 staggering into their home during dinner, with 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:34.860 his face beaten up and bleeding, his bow tie 00:07:34.860 --> 00:07:37.600 all torn up over it, asking for help. Just imagine 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:41.240 that. That trauma, witnessed during a quiet family 00:07:41.240 --> 00:07:43.939 meal, must have provided such a brutal contrast 00:07:43.939 --> 00:07:47.319 to his parents' abstract ideals of pacifism and 00:07:47.319 --> 00:07:49.420 civic duty. Yeah. It showed him that ideology 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:52.459 when it's enforced, is bloody and immediate. 00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:55.740 And despite his parents' secular, anti -conformist 00:07:55.740 --> 00:07:58.899 beliefs, which were rooted in Freemasonry, Republicanism, 00:07:58.939 --> 00:08:01.800 and anarchism, the fascist regime still enforced 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:04.120 conformity. He was exempted from religion classes 00:08:04.120 --> 00:08:06.420 at school, which he later said made him tolerant 00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:08.899 of others' opinions because it forced him to 00:08:08.899 --> 00:08:10.899 stand apart from the majority. But he couldn't 00:08:10.899 --> 00:08:13.500 stand completely apart. He was a compulsory member 00:08:13.500 --> 00:08:15.879 of the fascist youth groups and had to join the 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:18.439 assemblies and parades of the Avangardisti. He 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:20.600 was even forced to participate in the Italian 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:23.300 invasion of the French Riviera in June 1940. 00:08:23.660 --> 00:08:26.879 So this intensely intellectual young man whose 00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:30.120 family abhorred the regime found himself completely 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:33.600 against his will, a small, unwilling cog in the 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:35.720 fascist war machine. And that contradiction, 00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:38.200 being forced to participate in what you fundamentally 00:08:38.200 --> 00:08:41.000 despise, is what really set the stage for the 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.700 major life choice he made during the war. This 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:46.240 internal conflict, this gap between the family's 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:48.600 intellectual purity and the regime's violent 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:51.559 demand for participation, it all culminated when 00:08:51.559 --> 00:08:54.289 he started university in 1941. Initially, he 00:08:54.289 --> 00:08:56.929 chose the agriculture faculty at Turin and then 00:08:56.929 --> 00:08:59.309 Florence. He was still trying to please his family, 00:08:59.409 --> 00:09:01.889 still pursuing that scientific path. He even 00:09:01.889 --> 00:09:04.049 managed to pass four exams in his first year, 00:09:04.210 --> 00:09:06.190 which shows he had the capacity for the hard 00:09:06.190 --> 00:09:09.090 sciences. But his heart was somewhere else. His 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:11.669 real aspiration was to be a playwright, and his 00:09:11.669 --> 00:09:13.830 reading list was just a perfect synthesis of 00:09:13.830 --> 00:09:16.909 all his future literary concerns. It really was. 00:09:17.009 --> 00:09:19.950 He was secretly devouring anti -fascist writers 00:09:19.950 --> 00:09:22.870 like Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese, while 00:09:22.870 --> 00:09:24.970 at the same time reading scientific heavyweights 00:09:24.970 --> 00:09:28.129 like Planck, Heisenberg, and Einstein, just absorbing 00:09:28.129 --> 00:09:30.289 the fundamental laws of the physical universe. 00:09:30.570 --> 00:09:32.610 And this is where that literary ambition and 00:09:32.610 --> 00:09:34.610 the scientific background merge into decisive 00:09:34.610 --> 00:09:38.720 action. By 1943, The Germans had occupied Liguria 00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:42.379 and set up the puppet republic of Salo. Calvino, 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:44.860 who was 20 years old at the time, refused military 00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:47.539 service and went into hiding. This was a profoundly 00:09:47.539 --> 00:09:50.320 political and moral choice. And his choice of 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:53.019 resistance group reveals his structured, almost 00:09:53.019 --> 00:09:55.929 scientific approach to politics. He looked at 00:09:55.929 --> 00:09:58.450 the options and he concluded that of all the 00:09:58.450 --> 00:10:01.210 partisan groupings, the communists, the Garibaldi 00:10:01.210 --> 00:10:03.789 brigades were the best organized, the most effective 00:10:03.789 --> 00:10:06.370 and had the most convincing political line. It 00:10:06.370 --> 00:10:08.750 wasn't just an emotional decision. It was a pragmatic, 00:10:08.990 --> 00:10:12.129 reasoned calculation of efficiency. So for 20 00:10:12.129 --> 00:10:14.549 months, he fought as a partisan. He used the 00:10:14.549 --> 00:10:16.590 nom de guerre Santiago in the Maritime Alps. 00:10:16.669 --> 00:10:20.169 Life was rugged, dangerous and immediate. He 00:10:20.169 --> 00:10:22.509 was completely immersed in the raw ethical demands 00:10:22.509 --> 00:10:25.759 of survival and liberation. The danger wasn't 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:28.799 confined to him. Because he refused conscription, 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:31.679 his parents were held hostage by the Nazis for 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:34.360 an extended period at the Villa Meridiana. The 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:36.500 stakes could not have been higher. This is where 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:38.879 the quiet strength of his mother Eva is revealed. 00:10:39.539 --> 00:10:41.820 Calvino's tribute to her tenacity during this 00:10:41.820 --> 00:10:44.299 ordeal is such a humanizing moment in a story 00:10:44.299 --> 00:10:47.830 full of abstract political ideals. It is. He 00:10:47.830 --> 00:10:50.409 wrote that she was an example of tenacity and 00:10:50.409 --> 00:10:53.149 courage, behaving with dignity and firmness before 00:10:53.149 --> 00:10:55.769 the SS and the fascist militia, and with her 00:10:55.769 --> 00:10:58.490 long detention as a hostage. And he mentions 00:10:58.490 --> 00:11:01.190 that the black shirts three times pretended to 00:11:01.190 --> 00:11:03.190 shoot his father in front of her eyes. Unbelievable 00:11:03.190 --> 00:11:06.730 psychological torture. And that image, the botanist, 00:11:06.789 --> 00:11:08.970 the free thinker, and doing that to protect her 00:11:08.970 --> 00:11:10.830 husband, it really brings home the human cost 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:13.470 of the resistance and the sheer moral fortitude 00:11:13.470 --> 00:11:16.179 that was required. After the liberation in 1945, 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:19.240 Calvino moved to Turin, and he switched his major 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:21.940 definitively to the arts faculty. He solidified 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:24.100 his political identity. The war didn't just provide 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:26.940 material for his writing. It solidified his commitment 00:11:26.940 --> 00:11:30.679 to the Communist Party, the PCI. He viewed civilian 00:11:30.679 --> 00:11:33.179 life as a continuation of the partisan struggle, 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:36.360 throwing himself into the workers' movement and 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:38.580 the associated intellectual circles in Turin. 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:42.399 He graduates in 1947 with a master's thesis on 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:45.320 Joseph Conrad. Which is interesting, isn't it? 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:48.299 It's very telling. Conrad was a writer fascinated 00:11:48.299 --> 00:11:51.299 by exotic settings, moral ambiguity, and the 00:11:51.299 --> 00:11:53.659 inner lives of men tested by extreme external 00:11:53.659 --> 00:11:56.830 pressures. This interest in the exotic and the 00:11:56.830 --> 00:11:59.450 moral tightrope, it acts as a predictive insight 00:11:59.450 --> 00:12:02.590 into Calvino's own future obsessions. He quickly 00:12:02.590 --> 00:12:04.889 landed a pivotal role at the Ainaudi Publishing 00:12:04.889 --> 00:12:07.970 House in Turin, initially in publicity, working 00:12:07.970 --> 00:12:10.629 alongside intellectual giants like Cesar Pavese 00:12:10.629 --> 00:12:13.470 and Natalia Ginzburg and Roberto Bobbio. This 00:12:13.470 --> 00:12:15.789 placed him at the absolute nexus of Italian intellectual 00:12:15.789 --> 00:12:18.659 post -war life. His career trajectory was heavily 00:12:18.659 --> 00:12:21.000 political at first. He actually left Ainaudi 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.159 for a while to focus on politics, working as 00:12:23.159 --> 00:12:25.279 a journalist for the official communist Daily 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:27.740 Lunita and the political magazine Rinushita. 00:12:27.899 --> 00:12:30.240 And it was during this period of intense political 00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:33.179 commitment that his first novel, The Pass to 00:12:33.179 --> 00:12:36.740 the Nest of Spiders, was born in 1947. It was 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:38.600 written with the editorial advice of Pavese, 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:41.360 it won the Premier Ricciani, and it was a surprise 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:44.620 success. inaugurating his neorealist period. 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:46.879 And for you, the listener, we should quickly 00:12:46.879 --> 00:12:49.840 define neorealism here. This was the dominant 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:52.919 aesthetic in post -war Italy, committed to portraying 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:55.659 the grim socioeconomic and political realities 00:12:55.659 --> 00:12:58.940 of the country without any idealization. It was 00:12:58.940 --> 00:13:02.179 gritty, immediate, and firmly rooted in the physical, 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:05.379 messy world. Calvino contributed to this movement? 00:13:05.789 --> 00:13:07.750 facing his novel on his wartime experiences. 00:13:08.210 --> 00:13:10.210 But the most important piece of feedback came 00:13:10.210 --> 00:13:12.129 from his friend, Cesar Pervaes, who had this 00:13:12.129 --> 00:13:14.549 remarkably clairvoyant view of the young author. 00:13:14.690 --> 00:13:16.529 What did he say? Pervaes called him a squirrel 00:13:16.529 --> 00:13:19.129 of the pen who observed partisan life as a fable 00:13:19.129 --> 00:13:21.370 of the forest. Hold on a fable. This was supposed 00:13:21.370 --> 00:13:23.870 to be the essence of gritty realism. Pervaes 00:13:23.870 --> 00:13:26.309 detected the fantastic lurking in his most grounded 00:13:26.309 --> 00:13:29.250 war novel. He did. And you have to ask, what 00:13:29.250 --> 00:13:31.750 specific elements in Nest of Spiders hint at 00:13:31.750 --> 00:13:34.470 that fantastic viewpoint Pervaes detected? Well, 00:13:34.470 --> 00:13:36.169 it was the narrator, right? Exactly. It was the 00:13:36.169 --> 00:13:38.850 deliberate selection of the narrator. Pin, a 00:13:38.850 --> 00:13:41.590 young boy. By choosing a child's perspective, 00:13:41.950 --> 00:13:44.610 Calvino automatically injects a level of detached, 00:13:44.809 --> 00:13:47.370 almost mythical wonder into this brutal narrative. 00:13:47.929 --> 00:13:50.789 The adult horrors are filtered through a young 00:13:50.789 --> 00:13:53.730 mind that sees events as heightened, isolated, 00:13:53.929 --> 00:13:56.870 and almost allegorical. This detachment, this 00:13:56.870 --> 00:13:59.330 ability to step back and classify human events, 00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:02.490 was Calvino's inherent strength. Borrowed, perhaps, 00:14:02.730 --> 00:14:05.690 from his scientific upbringing. That Fable the 00:14:05.690 --> 00:14:08.850 Forest comment is just so prophetic. The inurealist 00:14:08.850 --> 00:14:10.909 streak continued with the short story collection. 00:14:11.250 --> 00:14:13.970 The Crow comes last in 1949, but the next few 00:14:13.970 --> 00:14:16.750 years show that the expected framework of neorealism 00:14:16.750 --> 00:14:19.450 wasn't built to contain Calvino's full imagination. 00:14:20.220 --> 00:14:22.379 The political life, too, is becoming increasingly 00:14:22.379 --> 00:14:24.440 structured. He even spent two months in the Soviet 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:27.519 Union in late 1951 as a correspondent for Lunita 00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:30.539 and won a prize for his journalism. He was deeply 00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:32.779 embedded in the system he was about to abandon. 00:14:33.139 --> 00:14:35.940 And now we arrive at the pivotal moment, the 00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:38.299 great shift, and it was triggered by a profound 00:14:38.299 --> 00:14:42.240 creative crisis. Right. Despite the success of 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:44.100 his first novel and his deep commitment to the 00:14:44.100 --> 00:14:47.549 PCI, Calvino struggled immensely to produce another 00:14:47.549 --> 00:14:50.370 work in that same realist vein. And that struggle 00:14:50.370 --> 00:14:54.029 was prolonged and painful. Between 1947 and 1954, 00:14:54.490 --> 00:14:57.809 he wrote three realist novels, The White Schooner, 00:14:57.929 --> 00:15:01.129 Youth in Turin, and The Queen's Necklace. But 00:15:01.129 --> 00:15:03.889 he deemed them all defective. He was just hitting 00:15:03.889 --> 00:15:06.350 an intellectual and formal wall. Because the 00:15:06.350 --> 00:15:09.490 political demand for gritty, immediate documentation 00:15:09.490 --> 00:15:12.490 was fundamentally inadequate for his mind. He 00:15:12.490 --> 00:15:14.269 was trying to write the book the party expected, 00:15:14.590 --> 00:15:17.090 the book Italy demanded in the post -war era, 00:15:17.210 --> 00:15:19.909 but it simply wasn't authentic to his inner logic. 00:15:20.110 --> 00:15:22.850 He realized he needed a radically different approach. 00:15:23.110 --> 00:15:25.629 And the self -discovery that resulted was liberating. 00:15:25.870 --> 00:15:27.809 He stopped trying to write the book I ought to 00:15:27.809 --> 00:15:30.429 write and consciously sought out the book I myself 00:15:30.429 --> 00:15:32.570 would have liked to read, discovered in an attic. 00:15:32.769 --> 00:15:34.710 He was following the memory of the fantastic 00:15:34.710 --> 00:15:37.529 stories he had loved as a child, the exact interest 00:15:37.529 --> 00:15:40.309 his scientific parents had dismissed. And that 00:15:40.309 --> 00:15:43.070 decision marked the discovery of his true, fabulous 00:15:43.070 --> 00:15:45.889 voice. The result was instantaneous creativity. 00:15:46.309 --> 00:15:49.570 The Cloven Vise Count, composed in just 30 days 00:15:49.570 --> 00:15:53.809 in 1952. It wasn't realism. It was pure allegory 00:15:53.809 --> 00:15:56.690 using fantasy to address contemporary reality. 00:15:56.970 --> 00:15:59.950 The protagonist is a 17th century Viscount who 00:15:59.950 --> 00:16:02.309 is literally sundered in two by a cannonball. 00:16:02.470 --> 00:16:05.730 And this creates a good half who is pious but 00:16:05.730 --> 00:16:08.289 a destructive perfectionist and a bad half who 00:16:08.289 --> 00:16:10.870 is cruel but often misunderstood. It's a grotesque 00:16:10.870 --> 00:16:13.230 but brilliant mechanism. It is the ultimate reflection 00:16:13.230 --> 00:16:15.210 of his psychological and political sundering. 00:16:15.289 --> 00:16:17.490 He was observing the Cold War split ideology 00:16:17.490 --> 00:16:20.370 into these absolute moral categories. versus 00:16:20.370 --> 00:16:22.830 West, pure good versus pure evil. And he was 00:16:22.830 --> 00:16:25.409 seeing the communist ideal split into the morally 00:16:25.409 --> 00:16:28.210 compelling memory of the resistance and the brutal, 00:16:28.250 --> 00:16:31.389 cynical reality of Stalinism. So by using fantasy, 00:16:31.629 --> 00:16:33.809 he could analyze political and moral fragmentation 00:16:33.809 --> 00:16:36.309 far more effectively than through any realist 00:16:36.309 --> 00:16:38.750 novel. And this successful experiment became 00:16:38.750 --> 00:16:41.590 the first part of his seminal Our Ancestors trilogy, 00:16:41.850 --> 00:16:45.470 which was published as an omnibus in 1960. The 00:16:45.470 --> 00:16:48.210 three novels, The Cloven Viscount, The Baron 00:16:48.210 --> 00:16:51.110 in the Trees, and The Non -Existent Knight cemented 00:16:51.110 --> 00:16:53.929 his status as a modern fabulist. But the move 00:16:53.929 --> 00:16:56.169 into fable wasn't just artistic, it was also 00:16:56.169 --> 00:17:00.590 professional. In 1954, Giulio Einaudi, recognizing 00:17:00.590 --> 00:17:03.610 Calvino's skill with narrative structure, commissioned 00:17:03.610 --> 00:17:06.230 him to undertake a monumental task. He wanted 00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:08.569 him to find an Italian equivalent of the Brothers 00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:11.490 Grimm. This led to the creation of Italian folktales 00:17:11.490 --> 00:17:15.150 in 1956. For two years, Calvino immersed himself 00:17:15.150 --> 00:17:18.029 in folk narrative, collating tales from 19th 00:17:18.029 --> 00:17:20.369 century collections across Italy and translating 00:17:20.369 --> 00:17:23.069 200 of the finest from various dialects into 00:17:23.069 --> 00:17:25.609 standard Italian. This was a Herculean task of 00:17:25.609 --> 00:17:27.890 linguistic and structural organization. And this 00:17:27.890 --> 00:17:30.210 project was the ultimate transition. He wasn't 00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:32.529 just collecting stories. He was organizing and 00:17:32.529 --> 00:17:34.470 analyzing the deep structure of storytelling 00:17:34.470 --> 00:17:37.410 itself. Crucially, he read deeply in the works 00:17:37.410 --> 00:17:39.829 of Vladimir Propp. particularly morphology of 00:17:39.829 --> 00:17:42.769 the folktale. Right. And for you, the listener 00:17:42.769 --> 00:17:45.049 who might not be familiar, Propp argued that 00:17:45.049 --> 00:17:47.509 all fairy tales, regardless of their content 00:17:47.509 --> 00:17:50.450 or cultural origin, are built from a limited, 00:17:50.630 --> 00:17:53.710 reusable set of structural components, the so 00:17:53.710 --> 00:17:56.630 -called functions of the hero. So Calvino realized 00:17:56.630 --> 00:17:59.329 stories could be constructed almost mathematically. 00:18:00.059 --> 00:18:02.680 following defined rules, much like a botanist 00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:05.440 classifying species. This impulse for classification 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:07.960 and structure became his new commitment, replacing 00:18:07.960 --> 00:18:10.799 the political commitment, which was rapidly collapsing. 00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:13.740 The final break came with the events of 1956. 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:16.420 The Soviet invasion of Hungary to suppress the 00:18:16.420 --> 00:18:19.160 uprising. That was the moral line Calvino could 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.160 not cross. He was utterly disillusioned. After 00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:24.559 dedicating his entire adult life to the PCI, 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:27.619 he formally left the party in 1957. And this 00:18:27.619 --> 00:18:30.279 was a deeply painful separation. In his letter 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:32.259 of resignation, which was published in Lunita, 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.940 he cited the violent suppression and the shocking 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:37.559 revelation of Joseph Stalin's crimes as the primary 00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:40.180 reasons. He never joined another political party. 00:18:40.279 --> 00:18:43.319 He effectively withdrew from active, ground -level 00:18:43.319 --> 00:18:46.380 political commitment. And the party was furious 00:18:46.380 --> 00:18:50.180 with him. He even satirized the PCI's stubbornness 00:18:50.180 --> 00:18:52.539 and intellectual stagnation in a story called 00:18:52.539 --> 00:18:55.460 Be Calmed in the Antilles, which resulted in 00:18:55.460 --> 00:18:57.640 him being ostracized by the party leadership. 00:18:57.900 --> 00:19:00.099 And the psychological fallout of this break just 00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:02.819 fueled his creativity. What did he write immediately 00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:05.460 after leaving the PCI? The Baron in the Trees, 00:19:05.539 --> 00:19:08.380 which he completed in three months in 1957. It 00:19:08.380 --> 00:19:10.900 is the ultimate allegory for intellectual separation. 00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:15.279 The novel is about Cosimo. A young man who decides 00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:18.039 at age 12 to leave his family after a petty argument 00:19:18.039 --> 00:19:20.720 and live the rest of his life exclusively in 00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:22.880 the trees, rejecting the world on the ground 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:24.980 entirely. The book centered on what he called 00:19:24.980 --> 00:19:27.480 the problem of the intellectual's political commitment 00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:30.140 at a time of shattered illusions. Having been 00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:31.880 forced to participate in the fascist movement 00:19:31.880 --> 00:19:34.359 as a youth and then disillusioned by the communist 00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:36.940 movement as an adult, Calvino literally used 00:19:36.940 --> 00:19:39.440 the fable to ascend above the messy, contradictory, 00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:42.420 ground -level reality of politics. That is a 00:19:42.420 --> 00:19:45.119 profoundly sad and decisive image, isn't it? 00:19:45.380 --> 00:19:47.839 After fighting for 20 months on the ground in 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:50.420 the Alps, his first major act of creative freedom 00:19:50.420 --> 00:19:53.279 is to physically remove himself and ascend into 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:56.099 the canopy. It suggests that for him, true intellectual 00:19:56.099 --> 00:20:00.299 honesty required distance, not immersion. This 00:20:00.299 --> 00:20:02.759 move ushered in a new chapter, not just creatively, 00:20:02.859 --> 00:20:05.900 but professionally. With Elio Vittorini, he became 00:20:05.900 --> 00:20:08.000 co -editor of the cultural journal Il Manabol 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:12.400 from 1959 to 1966, focusing entirely on the role 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:14.619 of literature in the modern industrial and technological 00:20:14.619 --> 00:20:17.680 age. It further cemented his interest in structure 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:20.680 and modernity over traditional realism. So the 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:22.900 great shift was complete, from the immediate 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:25.900 dirt of near -realism to the conceptual era fable. 00:20:26.269 --> 00:20:29.109 And this intellectual move quickly led to a physical 00:20:29.109 --> 00:20:31.390 and intellectual globalization, starting with 00:20:31.390 --> 00:20:33.869 America. Yes. Despite the Cold War restrictions 00:20:33.869 --> 00:20:36.369 on former communists, Calvino was invited by 00:20:36.369 --> 00:20:38.549 the Ford Foundation and visited the United States 00:20:38.549 --> 00:20:42.190 for six months between 1959 and 1960. He spent 00:20:42.190 --> 00:20:44.390 four of those months just immersed in New York 00:20:44.390 --> 00:20:47.430 City. And he was captivated by it, the sheer 00:20:47.430 --> 00:20:50.670 scale, the structured vertical landscape of the 00:20:50.670 --> 00:20:53.869 new world. He wrote, Naturally, I visited the 00:20:53.869 --> 00:20:56.630 South and also California, but I always felt 00:20:56.630 --> 00:20:59.950 a New Yorker. My city is New York. And that feeling 00:20:59.950 --> 00:21:02.750 speaks volumes. He found an intellectual home 00:21:02.750 --> 00:21:04.930 in the constructed, ordered landscape of the 00:21:04.930 --> 00:21:07.750 metropolis. It's a landscape built on measurable 00:21:07.750 --> 00:21:10.769 principles, a huge contrast to the historically 00:21:10.769 --> 00:21:13.490 burdened landscapes of Europe. His personal life 00:21:13.490 --> 00:21:18.089 also found a new orbit. In 1962, he met the Argentinian 00:21:18.089 --> 00:21:20.730 translator Esther Judith Singer, known as Chichita. 00:21:21.049 --> 00:21:24.150 They married in Havana in 1964, which was a fitting 00:21:24.150 --> 00:21:26.650 full circle moment returning to his birthplace. 00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:28.990 And that Havana trip provided a fascinating anecdote 00:21:28.990 --> 00:21:31.430 for our sources. He was introduced to Ernesto 00:21:31.430 --> 00:21:33.750 Che Guevara there. Right. And Calvino later wrote 00:21:33.750 --> 00:21:36.250 a tribute to Guevara in 1967, which shows that 00:21:36.250 --> 00:21:38.890 while he rejected party structures, he maintained 00:21:38.890 --> 00:21:41.670 a profound admiration for the idealistic revolutionary 00:21:41.670 --> 00:21:44.509 figure. After marrying, he and his wife settled 00:21:44.509 --> 00:21:46.670 in Rome, where their daughter Giovanna was born 00:21:46.670 --> 00:21:49.660 in 1965. And while working for Inotti again, 00:21:49.900 --> 00:21:52.319 Calvino began publishing some of his Cosma Comics 00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:55.059 stories. The collection was published in 1965, 00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:57.500 and it marks his full integration of science 00:21:57.500 --> 00:22:00.480 and fiction. He takes scientific and cosmological 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.519 concepts, the distance of the moon, stellar evolution, 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:07.099 the Big Bang, and turns them into origin fables. 00:22:07.339 --> 00:22:10.200 These are just profoundly playful stories, aren't 00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:12.500 they? They're often narrated by a character named 00:22:12.500 --> 00:22:15.799 Q -A -W -F -Q, a timeless entity who existed 00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:18.019 from the beginning of the universe. This is where 00:22:18.019 --> 00:22:20.019 his scientist parents finally found their way 00:22:20.019 --> 00:22:22.779 onto the page, but in a totally fabulized way. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:25.759 It's the ultimate literary reconciliation. He's 00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:27.839 taking the hard science his father championed, 00:22:27.839 --> 00:22:29.819 the precise measurements, the physical laws, 00:22:30.019 --> 00:22:32.539 and applying the structure and emotional resonance 00:22:32.539 --> 00:22:35.619 of a folktale. He transforms the cold facts of 00:22:35.619 --> 00:22:38.099 physics into these nostalgic, beautiful narratives. 00:22:38.380 --> 00:22:41.279 For example, in The Distance of the Moon, he 00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:43.240 uses the cosmological fact that the moon used 00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:45.660 to be much closer to Earth to weave this gorgeous, 00:22:45.779 --> 00:22:48.150 melancholy love story. Then came a significant 00:22:48.150 --> 00:22:51.809 rupture in 1966. The death of his collaborator, 00:22:51.910 --> 00:22:54.950 Elio Vittorini, triggered what Calvino termed 00:22:54.950 --> 00:22:57.849 an intellectual depression. But he viewed this 00:22:57.849 --> 00:23:00.549 depression not as a failure, but as a necessary 00:23:00.549 --> 00:23:03.430 metabolic process toward a new phase of life. 00:23:03.609 --> 00:23:05.990 He described it beautifully. He said, I ceased 00:23:05.990 --> 00:23:08.130 to be young. Suddenly I felt that I had to begin 00:23:08.130 --> 00:23:11.349 my old age. Yes, old age, perhaps with the hope 00:23:11.349 --> 00:23:13.789 of prolonging it by beginning it early. This 00:23:13.789 --> 00:23:16.230 intellectual maturity paved the way for his most 00:23:16.230 --> 00:23:18.470 structurally rigorous and experimental work. 00:23:18.650 --> 00:23:20.690 And that structure found its ultimate home when 00:23:20.690 --> 00:23:24.250 he moved to Paris in 1967. The following year, 00:23:24.390 --> 00:23:27.150 Calvino was invited by Raymond Queneau to join 00:23:27.150 --> 00:23:29.650 the Ouvrard des Literatures Potentielles, or 00:23:29.650 --> 00:23:32.730 ULIPO. ULIPO, the Workshop of Potential Literature, 00:23:32.730 --> 00:23:35.079 is the ultimate structuralist group. They were 00:23:35.079 --> 00:23:37.980 a collective of experimental writers and mathematicians 00:23:37.980 --> 00:23:40.380 focused on creating literature through self -imposed 00:23:40.380 --> 00:23:43.039 constraints. And this is critical for understanding 00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:45.900 his later work. The question is, what kind of 00:23:45.900 --> 00:23:48.059 structure can generate the most powerful, unexpected 00:23:48.059 --> 00:23:50.900 narrative? So for you, the listener, what exactly 00:23:50.900 --> 00:23:53.680 does a constraint mean in this context? A constraint 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.359 is a rule or formula imposed upon the writing 00:23:56.359 --> 00:23:59.680 process. It could be linguistic. like Peric's 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:02.019 famous novel written entirely without the letter 00:24:02.019 --> 00:24:05.920 E, a lipogram. Or it could be mathematical, like 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:08.480 the n plus 7 method, which involves replacing 00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:11.440 every noun in a text with the seventh noun following 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:13.720 it in a dictionary. So the writer is not free 00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:15.839 to invent randomly. They have to interpret the 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:18.700 structure. Exactly. And Calvino's exposure to 00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:21.660 Ulipo's ideas, collaborating with minds like 00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:24.799 Roland Barthez and Georges Peric, is immediately 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:27.400 apparent in his later fiction, like the Ulipo 00:24:27.400 --> 00:24:30.029 -inspired short story, The Burning of the Abominable 00:24:30.029 --> 00:24:32.869 House. The focus shifted entirely from depicting 00:24:32.869 --> 00:24:35.430 reality to examining the mechanics of fiction 00:24:35.430 --> 00:24:38.549 itself. This period gave rise to his most internationally 00:24:38.549 --> 00:24:41.690 influential later works, demonstrating the pinnacle 00:24:41.690 --> 00:24:44.410 of structural innovation. We begin with The Castle 00:24:44.410 --> 00:24:47.390 of Cross Destinies in 1969, which is essentially 00:24:47.390 --> 00:24:49.690 a narrative constructed by using tarot cards 00:24:49.690 --> 00:24:52.509 as the structural units. The path of the cards 00:24:52.509 --> 00:24:55.069 laid out on the table is the story. The physical 00:24:55.069 --> 00:24:57.660 constraint is driving the narrative. The writer's 00:24:57.660 --> 00:25:00.460 task is one of interpretation, not free creation. 00:25:00.740 --> 00:25:03.779 And this focus on classification and categorization 00:25:03.779 --> 00:25:06.660 culminates in the true masterpiece of conceptual 00:25:06.660 --> 00:25:10.980 fiction, Invisible Cities from 1972. Invisible 00:25:10.980 --> 00:25:13.400 City has won both the prestigious Feltrinelli 00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:16.880 Prize and the Prix Medici's Etranger. And it 00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:19.660 is this magnificent catalog of imaginary places 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:23.240 presented as Marco Polo describing dozens of 00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:26.019 fantastic cities to Kublai Khan. But it's not 00:25:26.019 --> 00:25:29.059 just imaginative. It is a meticulously categorized 00:25:29.059 --> 00:25:31.859 study. It is the ultimate expression of the botanist's 00:25:31.859 --> 00:25:34.640 impulse to classify, but applied to urban form. 00:25:34.839 --> 00:25:37.240 The cities are categorized by highly structured 00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:40.440 themes. Cities in memory, cities in desire, cities 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:43.740 in signs. It's systematic, exhaustive, and universal. 00:25:44.420 --> 00:25:47.039 Calvino even recognized this scientific impulse, 00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:49.799 stating, The catalog of forms is endless. Until 00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:51.839 every shape has found its city, new cities will 00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:54.660 continue to be born. It's a closed, perfect universe 00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:57.359 operating under its own internal structural laws, 00:25:57.539 --> 00:25:59.940 perfectly insulated from the political mess of 00:25:59.940 --> 00:26:02.180 the ground he had rejected. This trajectory culminates 00:26:02.180 --> 00:26:03.900 in one of the most highly experimental novels 00:26:03.900 --> 00:26:06.539 of the 20th century. If on a winter's night a 00:26:06.539 --> 00:26:10.019 traveler from 1979. A metafictional puzzle, the 00:26:10.019 --> 00:26:12.460 reader, addressed as you, is the protagonist, 00:26:12.839 --> 00:26:15.000 constantly beginning books that are interrupted 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.740 and replaced by new, non -sequitur beginnings. 00:26:18.099 --> 00:26:20.059 It's the ultimate deconstruction of the reading 00:26:20.059 --> 00:26:22.900 experience, foregrounding structure and form 00:26:22.900 --> 00:26:26.259 over content. His final major works also demonstrated 00:26:26.259 --> 00:26:29.059 his refined focus on meticulous observation and 00:26:29.059 --> 00:26:31.680 self -reflection, notably with Mr. Palomar in 00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:34.940 1983, which focuses on a man observing the world 00:26:34.940 --> 00:26:37.720 in painstaking detailed fashion. He was seeking 00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:40.779 to capture precise, objective reality through 00:26:40.779 --> 00:26:43.240 narrative structure. And Calvino wasn't just 00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:45.839 writing about these ideas. He was actively engaging 00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:48.500 the academic world. He became an honorary member 00:26:48.500 --> 00:26:51.599 of the American Academy in 1975 and traveled 00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:54.059 extensively, delivering lectures in the U .S. 00:26:54.059 --> 00:26:56.119 and receiving the Austrian State Prize for European 00:26:56.119 --> 00:26:59.700 Literature in 1976. His creative reach also extended 00:26:59.700 --> 00:27:02.019 across mediums. He co -wrote the screenplay for 00:27:02.019 --> 00:27:04.779 the Renzo e Luciano segment of Boccaccio 70 in 00:27:04.779 --> 00:27:08.140 1962 and collaborated on libretti with the composer 00:27:08.140 --> 00:27:11.299 Luciano Berio for two operas, La Veristoria and 00:27:11.299 --> 00:27:16.240 Un... That versatility is key. In 1981, he accepted 00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:18.559 the role of jury president for the 38th Venice 00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:21.519 Film Festival, cementing his position as a central 00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:23.799 figure in the entire spectrum of Italian arts 00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:26.779 and letters, recognized for his structural brilliance 00:27:26.779 --> 00:27:29.579 across diverse creative fields. By the mid -1980s, 00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:32.799 Calvino was still intensely working, consolidating 00:27:32.799 --> 00:27:35.519 his vision of literature for the future. He had 00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:38.000 reached a point of profound intellectual clarity. 00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:41.640 In the summer of 1985, He was diligently preparing 00:27:41.640 --> 00:27:44.220 texts for one of the highest honors in the academic 00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:47.140 world, the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard 00:27:47.140 --> 00:27:49.900 University. These are meant to be his definitive 00:27:49.900 --> 00:27:51.859 statement on the enduring values of literature 00:27:51.859 --> 00:27:54.279 for the next era. Tragically, he never delivered 00:27:54.279 --> 00:27:56.720 them. Calvino suffered a stroke on September 00:27:56.720 --> 00:28:00.140 6, 1985, while staying at his villa in Rocamare, 00:28:00.299 --> 00:28:02.119 where he was polishing the lecture material. 00:28:02.500 --> 00:28:04.519 He died less than two weeks later on September 00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:07.740 19 in Siena of a cerebral hemorrhage, aged just 00:28:07.740 --> 00:28:11.130 61. He's buried in the cemetery garden of Castiglione 00:28:11.130 --> 00:28:14.230 della Piscaia, near the sea he loved. But fortunately 00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:16.549 for us, his Harvard lecture notes were published 00:28:16.549 --> 00:28:19.730 posthumously, first in Italian in 1988 and then 00:28:19.730 --> 00:28:22.930 in English in 1993, as six memos for the next 00:28:22.930 --> 00:28:25.829 millennium. And they are powerful, elegant essays 00:28:25.829 --> 00:28:29.130 that lay out his core literary values. Lightness, 00:28:29.289 --> 00:28:33.630 quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, 00:28:33.630 --> 00:28:36.069 and consistency. though he only completed five 00:28:36.069 --> 00:28:38.470 of the six. These memos stand as a testament 00:28:38.470 --> 00:28:40.869 to the structural and conceptual rigor he had 00:28:40.869 --> 00:28:43.490 spent his entire career refining. They are the 00:28:43.490 --> 00:28:45.750 final classification from the son of the botanist. 00:28:45.910 --> 00:28:48.900 His legacy is just so far reaching. As a consulting 00:28:48.900 --> 00:28:51.319 editor at Inaudi, he played a crucial role in 00:28:51.319 --> 00:28:53.900 shaping post -war Italian literature, fostering 00:28:53.900 --> 00:28:56.259 an entire generation of talent. He helped publish 00:28:56.259 --> 00:28:58.539 major authors like Mario Rigoni Stern, Gianni 00:28:58.539 --> 00:29:01.079 Collati, and Leonardo Siascia. And his fabulous 00:29:01.079 --> 00:29:03.539 works continue to inspire new media adaptations. 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:06.579 For example, the 2011 American short film La 00:29:06.579 --> 00:29:09.380 Luna by Enrico Casarosa was loosely based on 00:29:09.380 --> 00:29:11.279 the distance of the moon from his Cosmi Comics 00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:13.880 collection. It just demonstrates the universality 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:16.579 of his imaginative concepts. It's hard to imagine 00:29:16.579 --> 00:29:19.369 a more fitting tribute to the man who used cosmology 00:29:19.369 --> 00:29:22.069 as a starting point for his fables than the fact 00:29:22.069 --> 00:29:24.029 that his memory is literally etched into the 00:29:24.029 --> 00:29:26.609 universe. It's true. A crater on the planet Mercury 00:29:26.609 --> 00:29:29.269 is named Calvino, as is the main belt asteroid 00:29:29.269 --> 00:29:33.539 22370 Italo -Calvino. He received numerous lifetime 00:29:33.539 --> 00:29:36.039 honors, including the World Fantasy Award for 00:29:36.039 --> 00:29:38.880 Life Achievement in 1982. It's just a remarkable 00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:41.680 journey from partisan fighter fighting for physical 00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:45.140 liberation in the Alps to a cosmic fabulist charting 00:29:45.140 --> 00:29:47.539 alien cities and demanding structural rigor. 00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:50.599 So what's this all mean for us? If we connect 00:29:50.599 --> 00:29:53.019 this entire paradoxical biography, the tension 00:29:53.019 --> 00:29:55.680 between the scientific home, the political commitment 00:29:55.680 --> 00:29:58.519 and the eventual artistic withdrawal, it raises 00:29:58.519 --> 00:30:01.180 a powerful final question. It does. Calvino wrote 00:30:01.180 --> 00:30:03.559 The Baron in the Trees, the story of a man who 00:30:03.559 --> 00:30:05.539 chooses to live entirely separate from the ground, 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:07.859 conducting his life in the canopy immediately 00:30:07.859 --> 00:30:10.579 after he left the Communist Party and disavowed 00:30:10.579 --> 00:30:13.039 direct political commitment. So, considering 00:30:13.039 --> 00:30:15.460 his upbringing steeped in scientific observation 00:30:15.460 --> 00:30:18.400 and political action, and his eventual pivot 00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:21.099 toward Oulipo constraints, structure, and pure 00:30:21.099 --> 00:30:24.420 fantasy, was Calvino's ultimate literary genius 00:30:24.420 --> 00:30:27.640 found not in observing the world directly, but 00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:30.359 in meticulously charting the space between reality 00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:34.500 and pure imagination, finding the necessary clarity 00:30:34.500 --> 00:30:37.500 and moral structure only when elevated high above 00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:40.170 the ordinary contradictory ground. Was that act 00:30:40.170 --> 00:30:42.650 of intellectual separation, the ascent into the 00:30:42.650 --> 00:30:45.210 canopy, the ultimate way for him to honor the 00:30:45.210 --> 00:30:47.730 utopian ideals of his anarchist parents and their 00:30:47.730 --> 00:30:50.490 commitment to scientific order without succumbing 00:30:50.490 --> 00:30:52.890 to the messy failures of 20th century political 00:30:52.890 --> 00:30:55.490 movements? That is the fascinating, challenging 00:30:55.490 --> 00:30:57.410 thought we leave you with today. A fantastic 00:30:57.410 --> 00:30:59.529 thought to leave you with as you process this 00:30:59.529 --> 00:31:01.549 deep dive. Thank you for joining us. We hope 00:31:01.549 --> 00:31:03.269 we give you the shortcut to understanding the 00:31:03.269 --> 00:31:06.509 surprising life and paradoxical genius of Italo 00:31:06.509 --> 00:31:06.930 Calvino.