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Il barone rampante Italo Calvino publisher: Einaudi, Torino, 1957 translated as: The Baron in the Trees publisher: Querido, Amsterdam, 1959 translation: refered to by: The Tin Drum Günter Grass The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera Orlando Virginia Woolf
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summary: A young, eighteenth-century Italian nobleman defies parental authority by adopting an exclusively arboreal life, watching from his perch in the trees the passing of the Enlightenment and participating in its various delights and duties. |
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| ON ITALO CALVINOS BOOKSHELF Candide Voltaire, 1759 This tale begins with the hero, Candide, being expelled from the Westphalian castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh for making love to the Baron's daughter, Cunegonde. So begins a series of disastrous misadventures on a fantastic odyssey for Candide, Cunegonde and Dr Pangloss. Tales of Mystery and Imagination Edgar Allan Poe, 1833-1849 Seven chilling tales. America Franz Kafka, 1927P Presents the story of Karl Rossman who, after an embarrassing sexual misadventure with a servant girl, is banished to America by his parents. Expected to redeem himself in the magical land of opportunity, he instead gets swept up in a whirlwind of strange escapades and dizzying adventures. Fictions Jorges Luis Borges, 1935/ 1944 / 1949 This is a collection of Borges's fiction, translated and gathered into a single volume. From his 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through the influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, to his final work from the 1980s, Shakespeare Memory. The Aleph and Other Stories Jorges Luis Borges, 1949 In stories that play with the very form of the short story, in this collection, Borges returns again and again to his themes: dreams, labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries, the manipulations of chance, gaucho knife-fighters, transparent tigers, and the elusive nature of identity itself. Exercises in Style Raymond Queneau, 1947 A determinedly pointless scenario unfolds 99 times in twice as many pages. | BOOKS BY ITALO CALVINO: Marcovaldo: or, The Seasons in the City 1963 A collection of stories, both melancholy and funny, about an Italian peasant's struggle to reconcile country habits with urban life. | WHAT TO READ AFTER MARCOVALDO? (POST)MODERN, BUT READABLE! The Confidence Man Herman Melville, 1857 Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the "masquerade" of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fidele is 'the confidence man'? That Awful Mess on Via Merulana Carlo Emilio Gadda, 1957 Officer Francesco Ingravallo investigates the death of a childless married woman and learns about the complex forces of fate. Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov, 1962 A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor. The Black Book Orhan Pamuk, 1990 Galip, an Istanbul lawyer, suspects that his vanished wife is hiding out with her half-brother, a newspaper columnist whose fame Galip envies. Galip plays the part of private investigator, with dire consequences. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers, 2000 Dave Egger' s parents died from cancer within a month of each other when he was 21 and his brother, Christopher, was seven. They left the Chicago suburb where they had grown up and moved to San Francisco. This book tells the story of their life together. CALVINESQUE TALES The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories Franz Kafka, 1915-1924 This collection brings together all the stories Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime, including 'Meditation', 'The Metamorphosis', 'The Country Doctor'" and 'In the Penal Colony.' Innocent Erendira Gabriel García Márquez, 1972 Erendira accidentally burns down her grandmother's house and is forced to pay her back with the money she earns from prostitution. However, it seems Erendira has a more appropriate way of repaying her. The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter, 1979 From familiar fairy tales and legends - 'Red Riding Hood', 'Bluebeard', 'Puss in Boots', 'Beauty and the Beast', vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. CALVINO'S INFLUENCE [Letter en geest] Frans Kellendonk, 1982 This postmodern 'ghost story' takes place in a library. The Passion Jeanette Winterson, 1985 From the frozen Russia of Napoleon's campaign, to the canals of Venice, this novel journeys through curious waterways of war and chance, where destiny and the heart cannot be forgotten - nor passion which is to be found somewhere between fear and sex, somewhere between God and the Devil. [Kukel] Joke van Leeuwen, 1998 Josofus, also known as Kukel, feels very lonely. So one day he decides to present himself to the queen - as a gift. (9 years and up) Baudolino Umberto Eco, 2000 It is 1204, and Constantinople is being sacked and burned by the knights of the fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage and confusion, Baudolino saves a Byzantine historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors, and proceeds to tell his own fantastical story. |
| Invisible Cities 1972 Each time he returns from his travels, Marco Polo is invited by Kublai Khan to describe the cities he has visited. The conqueror and the explorer exchange visions: for Kublai Khan the world is constantly expanding; for Marco Polo - who has seen so much of it - it is an ever-diminishing place. | ||
| Our Ancestors 1960 Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball on the plains of Bohemia; Baron Cosimo, at the age of twelve, retires to the trees for the rest of his days; Charlemagne's knight, Agiluf, is an empty suit of armour. These three vivid images are the points of departure for Calvino's classic triptych of moral tales. | ||
| Cosmicomics 1965 The protean hero Qfwfq shares his perspectives on scientific theories. | ||
| Mr. Palomar 1983 Stars and planets, birds, a loaded food counter, all take on an extra reality, as though observed for the first time in wonder by a man previously blind. | ||
| The Castle of Crossed Destinies 1973 Turns the 78 tarot cards to a new purpose, linking word and image to the purposes of narrative. A band of travellers, trapped in an gloomy castle in the heart of a wood, find themselves struck dumb and are only able to converse by using the tarot cards to tell one another how they came to be there. | ||
| If on a Winter's Night a Traveller 1979 A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino, the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. | ||
| The Baron in the Trees 1957 A young, eighteenth-century Italian nobleman defies parental authority by adopting an exclusively arboreal life, watching from his perch in the trees the passing of the Enlightenment and participating in its various delights and duties. | ||
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| The Ledge editor-in-chief: Stacey Knecht, info@the-ledge.com Thanks to: De digitale pioniers and Het Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Design: Maurits de Bruijn |
Copyright: Pieter Steinz, Stacey Knecht All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. |
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