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A review by cameliarose
Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings by Italo Calvino
3.0
I have never heard of Italo Calvino before I stumble upon this little collection in a secondhand bookshop, attracted by the title. Italo Calvino was a prolific Italian writer with an interesting history, an anti-fascist fighter in World War II and later a member of Italian Communist Party. He stayed in the party until after Budapest '56. The collection consists of two bigger pieces and several smaller ones. American Diary, written during his tour of the US between 1959 and 1960, is one of the bigger pieces. It's a window into a turbulent part of American history from the eyes of an outsider and an ex-communist. His observation is sharp.
Race and social mobility in the Midwest:
"What four or five years ago was an elegant suburbs is now in the hands of the well-off, black middle classes. The Jews have left their poor ghettos because now in Cleveland they are all more or less rich, and their previous houses have now all become slums for blacks. The churches remain - I mean the buildings - the synagogues in the ex-Jewish areas have now turned into Baptist churches for blacks, but they have retained the candelabra on the windows and the archivolts. The movement of races from one area to another in these big cities is constant: where the Italians once were now you find Hungarians, and so on. The Puerto ricans have not yet reached the Midwest, they are still concentrated in New York, but here in the last few years there has been a huge amount of Mexican immigrations. But the curious feature is that now on the bottom rung of the immigration ladder are the internal migrants, the poor whites from Virginia who come to work up here in the factories, and since they were the last to arrive, they find themselves below the blacks, and their racism and hatred of the anti-segregationist Yankees intensifies. "
White middle-class in American South:
"What comes over is an impression of a country in uniform, these middle-class families marching in formation all wearing stetsons and fringed jackets, proudly displaying their practicality and anti-intellectualism which has developed into their mythology, fanaticism, and alarming belligerence. "
"This famous Southern aristocracy gives me the impression of being uniquely stupid in its continual harking back to the glories of the Confederacy; this Confederate patriotism which survives intact after a century, as though they were talking of things from their youth, in the tone of someone who is confident you share their emotions, is something which is more unbearable than ridiculous "
He visited Martin Luther King in Montgomery and witnessed an anti-black protest in front of a black church:
"The pavements were swarming with whites, mostly poor whites who are the worst racists, ready to use their fists, young hooligans working in teams (their organization, which is only barely clandestine, is the KKK), but also comfortable middle-class people, families with children, all there to watch and shout slogans and obscenities against the blacks locked inside the church, plus of curse dozens of amateur photographers taking shots of such unusual Sunday events.The crowd's attitude varied between derision, as though there were watching monkeys asking for civil rights (genuine derision, from people who never thought the blacks could get such ideas in their heads), to hatred, cries of provocation, crow-like sounds made by young thugs. "
"The most admirable ones are the black girls: they come down the road in twos or threes, and those thugs spit on the ground before their feet, standing n the middle of the pavement and forcing the girls to zigzag past them, shouting abuse at them and making as though to trip them up, and the black girls continue to chat among themselves, never do they move in such a way as to suggest that they want to avoid them, never do they alter their route when they see them blocking their path, as though they were used to these scenes right from birth."
However, Italo Calvino is no friend to feminism. He complained several times that beautiful women he encountered turned out to be lesbians, and he called one woman "misandry" and the example of American pessimism.
A visit to IBM factory: "The workers were certainly highly qualified, and there was a very smooth rhythm of work; many woman, all of them fat and ugly (beautiful women here, as in Italian cities, are now only to be found in certain social strata)."
"...anyway this woman, who was young and Jewish but with a real feeling for nature." why but?
In an article called The Summer of '56, he explained how he left the communist party in 1956. An idealist's eventual disillusionment: "We Italian Communists were schizophrenic. Yes, I really think that is the correct term. One side of our minds was and wanted to be a witness to the truth, avenging the wrongs suffered by the weak and oppressed, and defending justice against every abuse. The other side justified those wrongs, the abuses, the tyrannies of the party, Stalin, all in the name of the Cause. Schizophrenic. Split."
The title essay, Hermit in Paris, is a rumination of self: "But perhaps I do not have the talent to establish personal relations with place, I always stay half in the clouds, with jut one foot in the city. My desk is a bit like an island: it could just as well be in some other country as here. And besides, cities are turning into one single city, a single endless city where the differences which once characterized each of them are disappearing. "
My favorite quote is this: "When I find myself in an environment where I can enjoy the illusion of being invisible, I am really happy."
Race and social mobility in the Midwest:
"What four or five years ago was an elegant suburbs is now in the hands of the well-off, black middle classes. The Jews have left their poor ghettos because now in Cleveland they are all more or less rich, and their previous houses have now all become slums for blacks. The churches remain - I mean the buildings - the synagogues in the ex-Jewish areas have now turned into Baptist churches for blacks, but they have retained the candelabra on the windows and the archivolts. The movement of races from one area to another in these big cities is constant: where the Italians once were now you find Hungarians, and so on. The Puerto ricans have not yet reached the Midwest, they are still concentrated in New York, but here in the last few years there has been a huge amount of Mexican immigrations. But the curious feature is that now on the bottom rung of the immigration ladder are the internal migrants, the poor whites from Virginia who come to work up here in the factories, and since they were the last to arrive, they find themselves below the blacks, and their racism and hatred of the anti-segregationist Yankees intensifies. "
White middle-class in American South:
"What comes over is an impression of a country in uniform, these middle-class families marching in formation all wearing stetsons and fringed jackets, proudly displaying their practicality and anti-intellectualism which has developed into their mythology, fanaticism, and alarming belligerence. "
"This famous Southern aristocracy gives me the impression of being uniquely stupid in its continual harking back to the glories of the Confederacy; this Confederate patriotism which survives intact after a century, as though they were talking of things from their youth, in the tone of someone who is confident you share their emotions, is something which is more unbearable than ridiculous "
He visited Martin Luther King in Montgomery and witnessed an anti-black protest in front of a black church:
"The pavements were swarming with whites, mostly poor whites who are the worst racists, ready to use their fists, young hooligans working in teams (their organization, which is only barely clandestine, is the KKK), but also comfortable middle-class people, families with children, all there to watch and shout slogans and obscenities against the blacks locked inside the church, plus of curse dozens of amateur photographers taking shots of such unusual Sunday events.The crowd's attitude varied between derision, as though there were watching monkeys asking for civil rights (genuine derision, from people who never thought the blacks could get such ideas in their heads), to hatred, cries of provocation, crow-like sounds made by young thugs. "
"The most admirable ones are the black girls: they come down the road in twos or threes, and those thugs spit on the ground before their feet, standing n the middle of the pavement and forcing the girls to zigzag past them, shouting abuse at them and making as though to trip them up, and the black girls continue to chat among themselves, never do they move in such a way as to suggest that they want to avoid them, never do they alter their route when they see them blocking their path, as though they were used to these scenes right from birth."
However, Italo Calvino is no friend to feminism. He complained several times that beautiful women he encountered turned out to be lesbians, and he called one woman "misandry" and the example of American pessimism.
A visit to IBM factory: "The workers were certainly highly qualified, and there was a very smooth rhythm of work; many woman, all of them fat and ugly (beautiful women here, as in Italian cities, are now only to be found in certain social strata)."
"...anyway this woman, who was young and Jewish but with a real feeling for nature." why but?
In an article called The Summer of '56, he explained how he left the communist party in 1956. An idealist's eventual disillusionment: "We Italian Communists were schizophrenic. Yes, I really think that is the correct term. One side of our minds was and wanted to be a witness to the truth, avenging the wrongs suffered by the weak and oppressed, and defending justice against every abuse. The other side justified those wrongs, the abuses, the tyrannies of the party, Stalin, all in the name of the Cause. Schizophrenic. Split."
The title essay, Hermit in Paris, is a rumination of self: "But perhaps I do not have the talent to establish personal relations with place, I always stay half in the clouds, with jut one foot in the city. My desk is a bit like an island: it could just as well be in some other country as here. And besides, cities are turning into one single city, a single endless city where the differences which once characterized each of them are disappearing. "
My favorite quote is this: "When I find myself in an environment where I can enjoy the illusion of being invisible, I am really happy."