Scan barcode
A review by rajaraks
The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
3.0
I was so excited to read this because I loved Invisible Cities. The first section of stories were fun, silly, and fanciful. Then they became experiments with math and run-on sentences... I started to skim. By the time it came back around to stories that I could follow and care about, I lost my interest in the book as a whole.
First, basically all of his female characters are one, maybe, two dimensional characters. Almost always love interests. With so much imagination in him, you'd think Calvino would have been able to craft better supporting characters. (I realize the stories are really short but it gets annoying when you read the 20th story with a similar concept to the previous 19.)
And second, after reading the introduction after finishing the book, there is a lot of "background information" and references that I just didn't have. I enjoy homages and tributes but when the story is dependent on you knowing the reference and can't stand on its own, I think it's a weak story. Plus, it's elitist. It's my preference, of course, but I feel like the author shouldn't penalize the reader if they haven't has the opportunity to come across the same material the author has had the privilege to read.
That being said, I really do appreciate the amount of creativity and scientific topics he plays with. Like many others my favorite story is the first one (in my version at least): The Distance of the Moon. There are some other stories that I enjoyed as well but as a whole, I can't say the same.
First, basically all of his female characters are one, maybe, two dimensional characters. Almost always love interests. With so much imagination in him, you'd think Calvino would have been able to craft better supporting characters. (I realize the stories are really short but it gets annoying when you read the 20th story with a similar concept to the previous 19.)
And second, after reading the introduction after finishing the book, there is a lot of "background information" and references that I just didn't have. I enjoy homages and tributes but when the story is dependent on you knowing the reference and can't stand on its own, I think it's a weak story. Plus, it's elitist. It's my preference, of course, but I feel like the author shouldn't penalize the reader if they haven't has the opportunity to come across the same material the author has had the privilege to read.
That being said, I really do appreciate the amount of creativity and scientific topics he plays with. Like many others my favorite story is the first one (in my version at least): The Distance of the Moon. There are some other stories that I enjoyed as well but as a whole, I can't say the same.