Six Memos for the Next Millennium

Until I read about Italo Calvino's brilliance in Umberto Ecco's Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, his works remained on bookstore shelves as clouds hang in the sky. Two titles attracted my attention: Why We Read the Classics and Under the Jaguar Sun. So fascinating were Calvino's thoughts about literature in the former and the three stories in the latter that I located the title Six Memos for the Next Millennium from Eco's book and bought it. This volume is constituted by five Charles Eliot Norton lectures Calvino gave in 1985, shortly before he died. They are titled "Lightness," "Quickness," "Exactitude," "Visibility," and "Multiplicity." In each, Calvino explores the invisible working of language, whether it is the expression of mythmakers, poets or scientists -- ancients (Ovid and Lucretius), early moderns (Bocaccio, Dante and Galileo) and contemporaries ((Borges, Kafka and Kundera). But as well, he reveals his own thoughts about his own writings. For amateurs like myself, I also was introduced to writers I'd either knew casually or not at all - Cavalcanti (whom I discovered while reading essays by Ezra Pound more than a decade ago) and Montale and Leopardi. What is most exciting is Calvino's ability to uncover what is hidden in the work of such modern writers as Jorge Luis Borges, whose work has fascinated me, but which I've never been confident I penetrated. As a result of reading Six Memos, I plan to return to Borges' works soon, but not until I've read some more of Calvino's fiction, including Cosmcomics, which I am currently reading, with great wonder. After reading Six Memos for the first time, I've now read it a second time, more slowly than the first time, and plan to read it a third, even more slowly. Six Memos reveals to the reader the challenges of any writer to be able to capture the truth. For any reader who also wishes to understand the magic of poetry, this is, in my judgment the best book I've ever read. It not only opens doors to anyone interested in the poetic art, it provides a set of criteria by which one may judge good poetry from bad. I've also sent the title to fiction- and poetry- reading friends, anticipating that they will find it as exciting.

These six lectures given by Italo Calvino in 1985, open worlds of possibilities not only for literature but for us and our multiplicities of expression.

I had this book in my back pocket the other night and forgot to take it out when I tossed my pants in the wash. So now I'm trying to remember stuff without the benefit of being able to look at the book. The pages are stuck together! :( While I think a lot of this was over my head, this was a really fascinating read and a really great way to get inside the head of an author whose work I greatly enjoy. As I have no sort of talent whatsoever, the intricacies and applications of Calvino's arguments were lost on me, but I found great value in understanding how these ideas shaped him as a storyteller and, therefore, molded me as a storyreader. With this being such an academic affair, I found it terribly difficult to write down any sort of words of the type I usually care to write. There was plenty to think about, but there isn't a lot to feel about. The one thing I remember finding rather striking was Calvino's description of how people find beauty in... well, anything. I was looking at a clear blue sky this weekend, and this passage (again, sorry I can't quote anything... I think from the Multiplicity section) came crashing to the forefront of my mind. The clear blue was beautiful, but behind me wisps of white were brushed across the light blue giving my eyes a break in the monotony that just highlighted the pureness of the blue behind them. I let my gaze drop to the horizon where the treetops wove in and out of the clouds like fingers intertwined from the hands of lovers, and I don't think I've ever seen something I've read appear so perfectly before me in the real world... and then I got it. Much of the book read in a similar fashion to the above illustration... I especially recall, in Lightness, Calvino's initial description of the importance of lightness; then, as his thought became more complete, the notion that lightness could even have a meaning without its counterpart. Nothing is anything without its opposite, and it is a skilled artist who knows how, when, and to what extent to use both. I was quite happy to see this continue through the section on Exactitude as I couldn't help but thinking of the long winding descriptions provided by Dostoyevsky, especially given Calvino's apparent love affair with Crime and Punishment (Everyman's Library) , as he extolled the virtues of exactitude and succinctness. Exactitude does not simply mean brevity, just as lightness does not simply mean the absence of weight. The other idea that has stuck with me as I've pondered this book is the idea of the unknown. I believe Calvino was quoting someone else when he said that we, "look for what is unknown as it is always more attractive than what is known; hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments of sorrow and experience," but that idea struck me immediately as both the reason why we continue to search for beauty and why we will never believe we've found it. I believe this came from the Visibility lecture, and I was taken aback by the author pointing out this flaw in myself. It took a while to finally realize that this is neither a specific strength nor a flaw but simply another aspect of the duality human nature. Perhaps we know that the idea of purity in beauty simply does not exist, and it speaks to the optimism of the human spirit that we continue to look, yet knowing this Truth we still find it difficult to accept and hold onto whatever facet of beauty we might have in front of us. I wish I was more well-read before diving into this. I am very glad that I have a (recent) passing understanding of Borges, I was thrilled to see Calvino so often refer to his own works, (although I was surprised to see Invisible Cities play such a large role when I was expecting Cosmicomics to take center stage) and I was pleased to finally see Dostoevsky rear his head. Even so, I missed at least as many references as I got. I certainly don't think I will ever be able to assimilate every reference Calvino made here, but I do think I will really appreciate reading this again once I have made it through the rest of his catalog and strengthened my acquaintance with Borges. Here's hoping that one day I can visit the library full of all the books never written and absorb Calvino's missing thoughts on Consistency. This was a magnificent swansong.

Five-star review of Six Memos for the Next Millenium by Italo Calvino There are only five memos or rather lectures that Calvino wrote in 1985 but never was able to deliver due to his untimely death. They cover what he calls literary values of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity in a far-ranging references to literature, myth and folklore. A sixth was added in the class I attended by the writer running the course. The titles of each section could have been something broader because the content covered so many aspects of each word. Perhaps better titles would have been weight, pacing, precision, imagination or vision, and proliferation. There’s so much to unpack in this little book. I’ll have to reread it to get the bits I didn’t the first time around.

This is without a doubt my favorite Calvino book. I have read every English translation of his books, many of them two and three times. I wrote my MFA thesis on Calvino's writings and Giorgio De Chirico's paintings from 1911 to 1916. Six Memos is my most cherished work by Calvino and I have read it at least a dozen times or more, so much so that my paperback version(s) are dog eared and hopelessly marked with notes. The Kindle edition is a much needed addition to my library. I always return to this book for creative inspiration, especially when I am in a dry spell. A must have for anyone who creates, whether it be writing, music, or the visual arts. His principles apply across the board.

Just didn’t resonate with me, but that’s probably a reflection on me, not the worth of the book.

A far more remarkable book than its size would suggest. Calvino's mind is full of quirky turns and twists and he uses both scientific imagination and poetic lucidity as instruments to enliven the journey of a future literature.

Très bon essai sur la littérature mais qui n’est pas sans rapport avec des préoccupations similaires en programmation / conception !

Editoriale un po' scarsa, ma libro incredibile.

Awesome

A brilliant book of reflections, multiple re-reads have only made it more apparent how well thought these lectures were.