Cosmicomics
by Italo Calvino
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Book Reviews of Cosmicomics
Book Review: For inspiration
Summary: 5 Stars
Calvino's "Cosmicomics" is nothing less than a daily source of inspiration for anyone interested in the ties between science and art, and the possibility of writing about science in a creative, imaginative way. Calvino is probably best known for his other works of fiction such as "If on a winter's night a traveler" and "Invisible cities," but it is in Cosmicomics (and some of the associated "T-zero" stories) that Calvino is at his best. The son of botanists, Calvino's work always, in some dimension, has a nack for description of the natural world (it's the most clear in an equally powerful work, "Mr. Palomar").
In "Cosmicomics," Calvino does something new, something lost in many a work of nature writing or popular science. He takes fact, spins it, twists it, gives it character and life, and yet still retains that core idea. Each begins with a brief paragraph of "objective" scientific language, into which Calvino injects the subjective visions and thoughts of his characters; indeed, most of the stories are told from a first-person point of view, and most of them are musings, involving monologue of some sort, some deep inner reflection.
Some of the stories he presents in the book are drawn from mathematical concepts, while others are biological. Together though, they tell the story of the universe's creation. "The Aquatic Uncle" describes the evolutionary transition from water to land, "Dinosaurs" speaks to the creatures' final die-off, and "The Spiral" touches on the changing of organismal forms and the evolution of sight.
To anyone interested in the ways in which scientific concepts can serve as inspiration in any form of art, "Cosmicomics" is one of the best places to look, at least in terms of literature. I know of very few other writers who have done this sort of "science fiction," something both telling of Calvino's status as a fantastic writer, but also something sad, because so much opportunity lies in the genre that Calvino has seemingly opened. Below is one example:
"When you're young, all evolution lies before you, every road is open to you [...] If you compare yourself with the limitations that came afterwards, if you think of how having one form excludes other forms, of the monotonous routine where you finally feel trapped, well, I don't mind saying that life was beautiful in those days"
My favorite quote above, from the final story, "The Spiral," serves as an inspiration to me, and I hope that those who pick up a copy of "Cosmicomics" too find some part of it that speaks to them.
Book Review: Back to the beginning
Summary: 5 Stars
To read Italo Calvino is a strange and wonderful experience - no literary parallels suggest themselves. He is undoubtedly among the most original, imaginative writers of the 20th century.Cosmicomics, then, is likely to be a revelation for the uninitiated reader, getting ready to crack the crisp, white cover and dive into its mysterious interior. What we have here is a collection of some twelve short stories tracing the history and evolution of the cosmos.
Each of them begins with a scientific premise - the moon's changing proximity to the Earth, for example, or the Big Bang theory - from which Calvino proceeds to give free rein to his imagination (much to the pleasure of the reader).
A constant guide throughout the itineraries spanning billions of light years is old Qfwfq - a sort of omnipresent cosmic particle, imbued with child-like qualities and always willing to share his quirky observations, romantic misadventures and innermost secrets.
Through the span of the stories Qfwfq confesses the nature of his affectionate tie with the moon, explores the belt of a galaxy, recalls the Universe as it was before its expansion when all of space was condensed into a singularity, the seeing of the first sunrise ever, the agony of being the last existing dinosaur and his never-ending ache for a primordial unity. The characters that are introduced throughout the stories range from a wide ontological array - abstract chemical compositions, brightly colored mollusks, gases and so on. Definitely not a conventional group but with names like (k)yK and Mrs.Vhd Vhd, how could they be?
Cosmicomics teaches its reader while remaining playful. It is at once a work that is surreal, philosophical, humorous and entertaining, without slipping into pretentiousness. The collection is masterfully translated from its original Italian by William Weaver. The writings remains beautiful, lucent and at times, gravity-defying. Calvino succeeds in making the unimaginable accessible to us, so that we can begin, at least mentally, to take leaps that span light-years. The reader should re-discover the awe, the on going `wow' of the universe, happening at this very moment.
"And at the bottom of each of those eyes I lived, or rather another me lived, one of the images of me, and it encountered the image of her...in that beyond which opens, past the semiliquid sphere of the irises, in the darkness of the pupils, the mirrored hall of the retinas, in our true element which extends without shores, without boundaries." (Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino)
Book Review: Breathtaking Human Stories in Fable form
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently obtained a new copy of COSMICOMICS after having lost my old, tattered paperback which someone borrowed and forgot to return back in the 1980s. On this rereading, I was amazed at how many of the wondrous stories I remembered, along with the gorgeous writing (in William Weaver's colloquial translation), the irony, the frequent hilarity, the many adroit and startling insights. The two tales I'd taken to heart back in the 80s, THE DINOSAURS and THE SPIRAL, turned out to be my favorites still. The first, with its wrenching surreal last line, you might call an "animal fable," but it's not so much about the last dinosaur living among mammalian critters as it is about the eternal outsider, the stranger in a strange land. Most of Calvino's stories have as their protagonist a shy, fumbling, fussy, nerdy sort of being, the eternal academic male whom the author names "Qfwfq," an unpronounceable palindrome that is a witty lampoon of alien names in 1930s pulp magazine space opera. Whether in the form of protean energy, protoplasm or dinosaurian scales, Qfwfq is different from everyone else--sometimes selfish, irascible, petty, revenge-plotting and jealous--but always different. And recognizable. And despite all his faults, worth forgiving and loving.
In THE SPIRAL our eternal being is a conch under a shallow sea, who under a compulsion both joyous and anxious builds around himself the universe's first shell, demonstrating that art combines showing-off with longing and desire, and that love expressed as desire is the source of great art. Love is Calvino's other great theme. His lover (Qfwfq) is often fatuous, frequently engaged in futile pursuits, sometimes (I say regretfully, being a woman) sexist, but more than anything steadfast. I am reasonably sure, having read other books of his, that during his lifetime he believed that the universe was born from love and longing. Though shapes and intelligences, comprehensions and artifacts have evolved, love somehow manifests itself up through time in much the same as-yet unfulfilled and puzzling way. No orthodox theology can explain this--but only a theology called "panentheism" or process philosophy, that I believe Calvino and I share. The only God I (and, I presume, Calvino) could believe in is one that gave life to a universe in continual evolution--otherwise, how to explain art, science, free will--and love?
Book Review: Scientific Musings, Delightful Comedy, and Pure Fantasy - Imaginative Tales by a Master
Summary: 5 Stars
How does one describe Italo Calvino? A superb, imaginative story teller? A startlingly creative writer? Author of provocative, compelling, fantastical fiction?
Cosmicomics is a superb introduction to a uniquely remarkable author, a storyteller in a class by himself. These twelve tales begin with cosmological observations such as "At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the moon was very close to the earth". What follows is a first person (or perhaps, first entity would be more precise), imaginative account, loosely tied to the introductory scientific premise.
The protagonists are decidedly strange, perhaps atomic scale particles, mathematical expressions, cellular structures, simple biological forms, or extinct creatures. Calvino never quite describes the story teller, leaving us to exercise our imagination. What is clear, however, is that these entities, rather remarkably, exhibit behaviors like jealousy, arrogance, self-delusions, rivalries, and ambition. Similarly, relationships between particles, or force fields, cells, or whatever, are described not by complicated equations, but are cast in familiar terms: we find uncles, spouses, lovers, and enemies.
The plots defy easy categorization. One involves a blind mollusk (no visual organ) contemplating the invisible beauty of his/her (gender is somewhat non-specific) colorful, spiral, carbonate shell. Another is a poignant account of two lovers separated by evolutionary divergence. A third involves two rivals falling endlessly along some gravitationally curved path. I was especially intrigued with a rather sensitive (and long-lived) character, becoming the subject of observations from distant galaxies, is deeply disturbed by his inability to alter his past actions, now forever fixed in light waves propagating across the universe.
Some reviewers have argued that not all stories are entirely successful. I agree. Some accounts are less structured and wandered around, becoming lost in Calvino's fantasy world. Nonetheless, I find myself returning to these stories for a second and third reading. I am compelled to award five stars to Cosmicomics: one star for superb story telling, one for exotic characters, one for scientific muddling, one for provocative observations, and one for delightful comedy.
Book Review: A General Thickness of Signs
Summary: 5 Stars
"In the universe now there was no longer a container and a thing contained, but only a general thickness of signs superimposed..., occupying the whole volume of space." (Calvino 36 ).
Qfwfq, a palindromic non-entity who is actually all entities at once; a point (43), a thought (63), a dinosaur (97), a fish's nephew (71), a god (31), a beam of light flying through space (115); transcends the role of character, becoming a signifier for sentience itself. By abstracting character interaction against the empty landscape of the universe before time and before humankind, Calvino heightens the readers awareness of themselves as gods, as creators of the worlds of meaning that surround them. Qfwfq becomes representative of all inner contemplation, and therefore of sentient awareness as a whole.
All of Calvino's characters reflect this ever-present sentience. Uncle N'ba N'ga, for instance, is specifically identified as of the family Coelacanthus (71) which is a rare type of lungfish that was thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago but was then discovered off the coast of Madagascar in 1918. The uncle, like Qfwfq, represents the ever presence of sentient life as an idea that transcends its earthly form, defeating even extinction. Sentience is something that exists perpetually, before, after and during the universe, collecting hydrogen atoms as easily as catching a train to Paris. It creates reality around it by introspection, marking points in itself, identifying meaning in itself, and projecting that meaning outward. The universe is therefore created by life's contemplation of itself and its environment.
Thus we are shown to be gods spinning away through time desperately trying to leave marks to prove we exist (31), to rejoin with the disparate souls from the original point (43), falling forever through time parallel to, but never touching, the object of our desire (115). By marking the universe with our thoughts of it we create it. Because we go on forever as humans and lizards and stars, we can only identify ourselves and our world by the marks we leave, which become so thick over time that we assume them to be reality