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aschoonover's review against another edition
challenging
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
elianachow's review
2.0
Basically a whole lot of shlup shlup shlup nonsense that I did not enjoy reading. The first series of stories was engaging, and Calvino’s prose is lyrical enough, but the collections as a whole were something along the lines of pseudo-philosophical sci-fi modernism and I wasn’t a fan.
gph's review against another edition
4.0
If you ever wanted to read about making tagliatelle at the time of the big bang, or have wondered what if the moon was like, soft and gross, or like scaly and oozing, do not hesitate.
This is a big collection of collections. Qfwfq is an egoist, jealous, stuck-up, probably a cosmic-scale liar, and I loved him. Some of the stories, especially where Qfwfq is no longer driving, get a little mathematical and then you really feel like you are kind of plodding along and if covid lockdown hadn't forced my hand I might have left this unfinished during the Time and the Hunter collection. I was so relieved when Qfwfq returned for the end!!
This is a big collection of collections. Qfwfq is an egoist, jealous, stuck-up, probably a cosmic-scale liar, and I loved him. Some of the stories, especially where Qfwfq is no longer driving, get a little mathematical and then you really feel like you are kind of plodding along and if covid lockdown hadn't forced my hand I might have left this unfinished during the Time and the Hunter collection. I was so relieved when Qfwfq returned for the end!!
elenajohansen's review
3.0
I am boggled, though mostly in a good way.
I found this a quite difficult and cerebral read, not at first, but increasingly as the stories began to seem less like "stories" and more like esoteric philosophical tracts and eventually complex mathematical proofs. The anthology starts innocently enough with a tale full of absurd humor about going to the moon for its milk, so I did not suspect that by the end I would be thoroughly confused.
That's not entirely the book's fault, though, because had I known just how experimental this fiction would be, I might not have chosen to read it during a worldwide pandemic that's stressing me out and destroying my concentration. I know I'm not the only one having difficulty focusing on reading--I just read an article about it yesterday--but this book certainly requires that focus, that curiosity and questioning and interest. I just couldn't summon it as much as I needed to--by the end I was sitting down and telling myself "Just get through one story, then go do something else." Not my preferred way of reading.
So it's a challenging book. For all that, when I "got" it, I enjoyed it. The early stories often relied on absurdist humor coupled with a sort of deliberate cognitive dissonance--the narrator could be a human, or they could be a single cell, or they could be a fish just crawled from the water to live on dry land for the first time in evolutionary history, but the tone and expressions and idioms were still human, so sometimes you had to remember it wasn't necessary a "person" speaking, or that space and time didn't behave the way we perceive them or the way you would expect them to. Things got weirder from there, with a story about falling infinitely through curved space, in pondering the eventual intersection of parallel lines via non-Euclidean geometry, becoming a metaphor for a threesome; with a single afternoon car ride being overwhelmed by passion in the form of extensive blood/salt/seawater metaphors; with a story about the mitosis of a single-celled narrator being likened to falling in love, but not with another, but also not with yourself, but also not a vague sort of cosmic, universal love. (That one in particular bent my brain a little too far out of whack.)
I love the idea of it, or rather the ideas, the weird bent on philosophy via biology and other sciences. But my poor beleaguered brain wasn't up to some of the more difficult concepts and twists and pages-long paragraphs of endless pontificating.
Ideally, I'd like to come back to this in a year or so and give it another try, to see if it makes more sense (or at least is more enjoyable in whatever level of nonsensicalness it still holds for me) when I can give it the attention it deserves.
I found this a quite difficult and cerebral read, not at first, but increasingly as the stories began to seem less like "stories" and more like esoteric philosophical tracts and eventually complex mathematical proofs. The anthology starts innocently enough with a tale full of absurd humor about going to the moon for its milk, so I did not suspect that by the end I would be thoroughly confused.
That's not entirely the book's fault, though, because had I known just how experimental this fiction would be, I might not have chosen to read it during a worldwide pandemic that's stressing me out and destroying my concentration. I know I'm not the only one having difficulty focusing on reading--I just read an article about it yesterday--but this book certainly requires that focus, that curiosity and questioning and interest. I just couldn't summon it as much as I needed to--by the end I was sitting down and telling myself "Just get through one story, then go do something else." Not my preferred way of reading.
So it's a challenging book. For all that, when I "got" it, I enjoyed it. The early stories often relied on absurdist humor coupled with a sort of deliberate cognitive dissonance--the narrator could be a human, or they could be a single cell, or they could be a fish just crawled from the water to live on dry land for the first time in evolutionary history, but the tone and expressions and idioms were still human, so sometimes you had to remember it wasn't necessary a "person" speaking, or that space and time didn't behave the way we perceive them or the way you would expect them to. Things got weirder from there, with a story about falling infinitely through curved space, in pondering the eventual intersection of parallel lines via non-Euclidean geometry, becoming a metaphor for a threesome; with a single afternoon car ride being overwhelmed by passion in the form of extensive blood/salt/seawater metaphors; with a story about the mitosis of a single-celled narrator being likened to falling in love, but not with another, but also not with yourself, but also not a vague sort of cosmic, universal love. (That one in particular bent my brain a little too far out of whack.)
I love the idea of it, or rather the ideas, the weird bent on philosophy via biology and other sciences. But my poor beleaguered brain wasn't up to some of the more difficult concepts and twists and pages-long paragraphs of endless pontificating.
Ideally, I'd like to come back to this in a year or so and give it another try, to see if it makes more sense (or at least is more enjoyable in whatever level of nonsensicalness it still holds for me) when I can give it the attention it deserves.
bellaroobookworm's review
5.0
I don't think I have ever been so intrigued by a collection of short stories before. Calvino's work is startling, alluring, provoking, soothing...an enjoyable read.
abarrera's review against another edition
3.0
This one is a hard book to describe. The word would be inconsistent. Some stories are mind-blowing. Calvino is a true genius of logic and displays an amazing imagination. I love the Cosmic theme and how the later stories structure from smallest to biggest. Some of the stories while interesting were hard to follow and more of an experiment than anything else. Still, it's an interesting compendium, one that will definitely push your creativity.
yavin_iv's review against another edition
fell into a hyperfixation pit elsewhere, then a depression pit. library started calling. sorry mister calvino, i'll come back
castella_and_novellas's review
will come back eventually- just a little too smart for me. need to read more sci-fi before jumping into this one
jackc7's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0