Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
WTF did I just read?
As is typical with short story collections, there were some stories that I liked a great deal and some that I liked not at all. All of them, though, were profoundly weird.
As is typical with short story collections, there were some stories that I liked a great deal and some that I liked not at all. All of them, though, were profoundly weird.
I read the first volume only and lost interest in the rest. The very first story, "The Distance of the Moon", is one of my favorites, but none of the other stories in the first volume quite lived up to my initial excitement.
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My apologies, but I am not using my one wild and precious life to finish this book. Calvino will always have a special place in my heart, but these zany atom antics aren't resonating. The author maintains his trademark levity, but his verbal acrobatics across space and time ultimately lead nowhere and are a headache to untangle, as empty as the vacuum his primordial characters occupy. I also can't shake my persistent discomfort resulting from the voyeuristic way he writes about women and their bodies (throughout his oeuvre) and the endless chase (à la Apollo and Daphne) led by his male protagonists.
I found the beginning of this story about our consumerist future kin becoming displeased with an increasingly shabby moon quite charming. However, as it went on, the increasingly surrealistic events lost it some of its power and (ironically) magic for me.
Jedna od onih knjiga za pusto ostrvo, jer sa svake njene stranice se mogu iscediti čitavi romani.
Tehnički, ova zbirka se sastoji iz tri zbirke, pa je čitanje u kontinuitetu pomalo naporno: originalnih Cosmicomics-a, zbirke Time and the Hunter (čiji su delovi redom „More of Qfwfq“ kao dodatak Kosmikomiksima, „Priscila“ kao život i smrt jedne ćelije, i da, tačno je toliko opičeno koliko i zvuči, i konačno „t zero“, što su malkice dosadne matematičke priče, potpuno nepovezane sa ostalim zbirkama), i konačno zbirke World Memory, koja je zapravo samo drugi tom Kosmikomiksa.
Kalvino, na svoj tipično zabavan način, igra se sa svemirom i svime onim što ga čini: tematski obradjuje postanak, evoluciju, mesec, vreme... i razne druge kosmičke teme. Nijedan priča nije ista, (izuzev divnog pripovedača/konstante-medju-varijablama Qfwfq-a koji je čas dinosaurus, čas ćelija pa odmah zatim čovek iz Nju Džerzija, a čas sardina u singularitetu velikog praska), Kalvino pleše sa narativama koje svakoj priči daju novi, jedinstveni život. Medjutim, uprkos izuzetnoj širini tema koje obradjuje, sve ih spaja jedan motiv – ljubav. Kalvinu je voleti isto što i disati, postojati. Ljubav je uzrok svega. I to bi možda bilo patetično u rukama nekog manjeg pisca, ali šta reći za Kalvina, kome je razlog (inicijator) za veliki prasak prosta rečenica jedne senzualne Italijanke (zapravo bestelesnog diskutabilno postojećeg entiteta): „Boys, the tagliatelle I would make for you!“.
I bum, evo nas.
5-
Tehnički, ova zbirka se sastoji iz tri zbirke, pa je čitanje u kontinuitetu pomalo naporno: originalnih Cosmicomics-a, zbirke Time and the Hunter (čiji su delovi redom „More of Qfwfq“ kao dodatak Kosmikomiksima, „Priscila“ kao život i smrt jedne ćelije, i da, tačno je toliko opičeno koliko i zvuči, i konačno „t zero“, što su malkice dosadne matematičke priče, potpuno nepovezane sa ostalim zbirkama), i konačno zbirke World Memory, koja je zapravo samo drugi tom Kosmikomiksa.
Kalvino, na svoj tipično zabavan način, igra se sa svemirom i svime onim što ga čini: tematski obradjuje postanak, evoluciju, mesec, vreme... i razne druge kosmičke teme. Nijedan priča nije ista, (izuzev divnog pripovedača/konstante-medju-varijablama Qfwfq-a koji je čas dinosaurus, čas ćelija pa odmah zatim čovek iz Nju Džerzija, a čas sardina u singularitetu velikog praska), Kalvino pleše sa narativama koje svakoj priči daju novi, jedinstveni život. Medjutim, uprkos izuzetnoj širini tema koje obradjuje, sve ih spaja jedan motiv – ljubav. Kalvinu je voleti isto što i disati, postojati. Ljubav je uzrok svega. I to bi možda bilo patetično u rukama nekog manjeg pisca, ali šta reći za Kalvina, kome je razlog (inicijator) za veliki prasak prosta rečenica jedne senzualne Italijanke (zapravo bestelesnog diskutabilno postojećeg entiteta): „Boys, the tagliatelle I would make for you!“.
I bum, evo nas.
5-
3.5 stars. An excellent premise, let down by uneven execution. This is a collection of whimsical, often silly short stories that illustrate different time periods and physical phenomena, sort of like creation myths. Mostly they are told from the perspective of Qfwfq, a convenient narrator who just happens to have been everywhere (and everything!). One of my favourites was an early story about stars first starting to form, not long after the big bang, and how it confused Qfwfq and his family, who were more used to laying around in a soup of particles. Another illustrates beautifully the expanding universe, galaxies rushing away from one another, by having people communicate by holding up signs, the image of which takes longer and longer to appear, making conversation difficult. Later, Qfwfq is a mollusc, making a shell that we might find in the fossil record later on. These favourites are so clever and perfectly expressed that I often thought, "I wish I'd come up with that".
Each story is only around five to ten pages long, so there's not a whole lot in the way of plot or character development. Mostly this is fine, but some of the stories are boring or hard to follow, with little to redeem them. There's a set in the middle third of the book (perhaps a sub-collection) with a different tone and format that I ended up skimming past.
Still, I think the idea behind these stories is amazing, and the execution of the best ones perfectly done, it's just that there are so many I didn't like nearly as much.
Each story is only around five to ten pages long, so there's not a whole lot in the way of plot or character development. Mostly this is fine, but some of the stories are boring or hard to follow, with little to redeem them. There's a set in the middle third of the book (perhaps a sub-collection) with a different tone and format that I ended up skimming past.
Still, I think the idea behind these stories is amazing, and the execution of the best ones perfectly done, it's just that there are so many I didn't like nearly as much.
My 2nd Calvino book after reading and loving If on a Winter's Night a Traveller last year. While I was very intrigued by the blurb for Cosmicomics, most of the actual stories fell a bit flat for me, with the exception of a few brilliant ones ("The Light Years", "World Memory"). Possibly one of his novels would have been a better next choice.
Four stars due to some limitations of the additional stories collected here - however, the initial twelve tales, the 'core' cosmicomic stories, were uniformly wonderful and some of the best short fictions I've ever read.