The Literature Machine: Essays - Softcover

Calvino, Italo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099430851 ISBN 13: 9780099430858

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 1997

Synopsis

This is a collection of essays by the Cuban essayist and journalist. His work often seeks to confront the role of reader, author and character and question the form of each in order to explore new literary possibilities.

About this title

Review:

"This brilliant collection of essays should be a feast for his admirers, as well as for those who approach his dazzling oeuvre for the first time...Calvino is not only constantly and supremely intelligent; he is constantly and supremely faithful to his narrative imagination" (Guardian)

"Calvino juggles with ideas, spinning around the roles of reader, author, character, in ever-changing spheres, seeking the literary form that is yet to be, to fill the bookshelf as yet uncarved" (Literary Review)

"It's one of the many joys of The Literature Machine that the reader, always a crucial player in Calvino's literary game, gets to watch the writer also as a reader, though at one further remove. That the game is serious is never in doubt, however playful, however feather-light its motions. In Calvino's fictions, the narrative gymnastics, the comic irony, the enchantments of fantasy and the charm of paradox all perform exquisitely precise manoeuvres in that area "between the lightness of ideas and heavy weight of the world" (New Statesman)

Book Description:

'Brilliant-a feast' Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0099430851
• ISBN 13: 9780099430858
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352