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A review by buddhafish
Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino
5.0
127th book of 2020.
I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time: It is a book that has managed to elude me, by being hard to get hold of or else expensive to get hold of. I am in debt to my old university housemate who bought and gifted me this. Despite wracking my brain for a Calvino related anecdote involving us, I cannot think of one. The only thing that comes to mind is reading my first ever Calvino, [b:Invisible Cities|9809|Invisible Cities|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1468623303l/9809._SY75_.jpg|68476], whilst lying on my bed in our old house in Chichester. So can give only my thanks; it was worth it.
- Italo Calvino
All that can be done is for each one of us to invest our own ideal library for our classics; and I would say that one half of it should consist of books we have read and that have meant something for us, and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us. We should also leave a section of empty spaces for surprises and chance discoveries.
Calvino writes with grace in both his fictions and his essays. He is a fantastic writer in the fact I believe he is quite multifaceted, and by that I also mean that my own view of him is multifaceted. My lecturer referred to him once as being ‘icy’ – a term I have adopted as my own in reference to him. In fact, the full quote, as I have quoted before in my [b:The Baron in the Trees|9804|The Baron in the Trees|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344432724l/9804._SY75_.jpg|865256] review: “An icy postmodernist”, whom one “admires more than enjoys”. In some cases, I would agree. I am in awe of [b:If on a Winter's Night a Traveler|374233|If on a Winter's Night a Traveler|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1528312857l/374233._SY75_.jpg|1116802], but my enjoyment when reading it is another matter entirely. Any iciness, postmodernist-ness, is void here – what is left is Calvino at his intelligent and most graceful self.
The first essay is the title essay, and Calvino attempts to define a ‘classic’ novel, which ironically, his own novels fall into, in my opinion. He proposes 14 definitions, headings, and then further expansion into several; my favourite headings are:
5. A classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before.
6. A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.
9. Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.
After the title essay, in a further 35 essays, Calvino journeys through many essays on a number of writers and novels. He covers Conrad, Hemingway, Borges, Stevenson, James, Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Homer, Dafoe and more. Though I would only recommend these essays to readers particularly interested in the writers, Calvino’s thoughts on them and their style and influence, or simply in the grace and ease of his essay writing in general. Even essays concerning writers I was not aware of, or else uninterested in, I found great enjoyment through Calvino’s prose. The essays are dated between the 60s and the 80s. Of course, the most interesting essays for me were about writers I care for and read: Hemingway, Borges, Twain, Conrad, etc. The essays that surprised me the most were on Gadda and Pliny.
I considered adding quotes and thoughts on Calvino’s thoughts on other writers, but for one, I’d spoil it, and for another, it would end up being too like a Borges story, wouldn’t it? My thoughts, on Calvino’s thoughts, on someone else. Or even, sometimes, my thoughts, on Calvino’s thoughts, on another writer’s thoughts, on a final writer. We don’t have time.
I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time: It is a book that has managed to elude me, by being hard to get hold of or else expensive to get hold of. I am in debt to my old university housemate who bought and gifted me this. Despite wracking my brain for a Calvino related anecdote involving us, I cannot think of one. The only thing that comes to mind is reading my first ever Calvino, [b:Invisible Cities|9809|Invisible Cities|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1468623303l/9809._SY75_.jpg|68476], whilst lying on my bed in our old house in Chichester. So can give only my thanks; it was worth it.
- Italo Calvino
All that can be done is for each one of us to invest our own ideal library for our classics; and I would say that one half of it should consist of books we have read and that have meant something for us, and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us. We should also leave a section of empty spaces for surprises and chance discoveries.
Calvino writes with grace in both his fictions and his essays. He is a fantastic writer in the fact I believe he is quite multifaceted, and by that I also mean that my own view of him is multifaceted. My lecturer referred to him once as being ‘icy’ – a term I have adopted as my own in reference to him. In fact, the full quote, as I have quoted before in my [b:The Baron in the Trees|9804|The Baron in the Trees|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344432724l/9804._SY75_.jpg|865256] review: “An icy postmodernist”, whom one “admires more than enjoys”. In some cases, I would agree. I am in awe of [b:If on a Winter's Night a Traveler|374233|If on a Winter's Night a Traveler|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1528312857l/374233._SY75_.jpg|1116802], but my enjoyment when reading it is another matter entirely. Any iciness, postmodernist-ness, is void here – what is left is Calvino at his intelligent and most graceful self.
The first essay is the title essay, and Calvino attempts to define a ‘classic’ novel, which ironically, his own novels fall into, in my opinion. He proposes 14 definitions, headings, and then further expansion into several; my favourite headings are:
5. A classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before.
6. A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.
9. Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.
After the title essay, in a further 35 essays, Calvino journeys through many essays on a number of writers and novels. He covers Conrad, Hemingway, Borges, Stevenson, James, Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Homer, Dafoe and more. Though I would only recommend these essays to readers particularly interested in the writers, Calvino’s thoughts on them and their style and influence, or simply in the grace and ease of his essay writing in general. Even essays concerning writers I was not aware of, or else uninterested in, I found great enjoyment through Calvino’s prose. The essays are dated between the 60s and the 80s. Of course, the most interesting essays for me were about writers I care for and read: Hemingway, Borges, Twain, Conrad, etc. The essays that surprised me the most were on Gadda and Pliny.
I considered adding quotes and thoughts on Calvino’s thoughts on other writers, but for one, I’d spoil it, and for another, it would end up being too like a Borges story, wouldn’t it? My thoughts, on Calvino’s thoughts, on someone else. Or even, sometimes, my thoughts, on Calvino’s thoughts, on another writer’s thoughts, on a final writer. We don’t have time.