Book Review: Difficult Loves (1970), by Italo Calvino

Other than a couple short stories in The New Yorker, I had never read anything by Italo Calvino before reading this book of short stories, Difficult Loves. I knew Calvino only as one of the giants of Italian literature and the author of beautifully written short stories that really did not have a point. I won't say that my opinion of him has changed that much after reading this short story collection; however, I devoured this collection and at least now have an understanding and respect for Calvino as a post-modernist writer and a writer of damned entertaining stories that sometimes have a point and sometimes don't.

If you're unfamiliar with Calvino's work, I would highly recommend this book as an entry point. The stories are very accessible, often beautiful and poetic, sometimes violent, often laugh-out-loud funny, and always insightful, even if it's in a way you can't precisely put your finger on.

While it's impossible to summarize the plot of a short story collection, these stories take place during WWII and -- it seems -- the period about 10 years after, and the characters range from partisans in the Italian resistance, to pair of lovers rowing a rowboat along a rocky coast on a sunny day, to a band of unruly children who fight and make mischief on the seashore all day, to a man who becomes obsessed with photography, to a husband and wife who run a prostitution ring servicing American soldiers, and on and on. There's no way to characterize all of the various characters and situations in the book, but they're all fascinating and unexpected.

It's always been difficult for me (and, I'd guess a lot of people) to put my finger on exactly what "post-modernism" is, but as far as Calvino's stories are concerned it has to do with a certain sense of humor and a skewed perspective, often embedded deep in one character's psyche. Often including circumstances one would not encounter in daily life -- such as a crazed homeless man trying on furs in a fancy Italian fur shop, after he has scared way all the customers. Or a man on a train, seated next to a beautiful woman, trying desperately to figure out if she wants to sleep with him, by making the most subtle and indirect overtures.

Some of the stories, such as those that take place during the war, are a bit more straightforward. Others inflate the inner-workings of the character's mind to almost cartoonish proportions. Others, such as "Adventure of a Photographer" seem preposterously ahead of their time, presaging the modern day era of cell phone photography in which we have phones in our pockets and take pictures of seemingly everything.

And maybe that's what post-modernism means in this sense: not realism, but not fantasy, either. But rather a timeless, ironic, and dis-associated examination of some peculiar situation, almost like a camera aimed at one character's brain for the duration of the story, to the exclusion of all other elements such as plot and other characters. A bit like a fun-house mirror.

Trying to describe it is giving me a headache, in fact. Suffice it to say, despite being clearly set in 1940s and 1950s Italy, these short stories seem as fresh and contemporary as though they could have been written today. Furthermore, laced within the funnier and more ironic tales are some great nuggets of philosophy so elegant they read like poems (credit has to be given to the translators for that, partly at least).

If you're looking for an entryway into Italo Calvino's work, or even just a book of short stories to read in one sitting each and keep you entertained, and possibly cause you to use your brain, this is an eminently worthwhile read.