Talk:Italo Calvino

Il Politecnico

Actually "Il Politecnico" had nothing to do with the Turinese academic institution of the same name. The title was inspired by Cattaneo's pioneering 19th century magazine. See the relevant articles on Italian Wikipedia or check e.g. this Italian academic source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.6.59.14 (talk) 10:13, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If on a winter's night section

Is If on a winter's night a traveler really that much more popular than his other stories? Enough to warrant a section on it? I haven't really seen any evidence of this anywhere... Recury 19:26, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Recury on one point: The book shouldn't have its own section in the author article. It has its own extensive article, and it's not his defining work (the way that Il Gattopardo is for di Lampedusa, for example). I think that section should be deleted as redundant. | Keithlaw 20:57, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

A year and a half later, I finally get around to taking it out. The If On a Winter's Night a Traveler article is pretty good and probably doesn't need anything from this section, but if anyone feels like adding anything from it, here it is. Recury 19:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

"Perhaps Calvino's most famous novel, this begins with the words, "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveller." It's a novel therefore in which the reader plays a starring role. The reader gets a love interest, the Other Reader, and obstacles thrown in his way. In particular, the first story runs out after only a chapter. A pattern is quickly set up with single chapters of novels being cut off in their prime. Interspersed with these are chapters in which the reader's story, the pursuit of the end of these intriguing novels, and the pursuit of the Other Reader, is played out. Each chapter is written in the style of a different genre of work."

The central concept of this novel is the quest to find a complete and coherent narrative: a quest being undertaken by the actual reader and the Reader as character, struggling to hunt down the ever-elusive Chapters. In fact Calvino does hide a short, elegant story in the book (more of a vignette, really), and with a magician's flair he hides it in plain sight in a part of the book to which most readers give cursory attention."

Image:Calvino-italo.jpg

It doesn't look to be a proper fair use image, since it is part of a book cover that is used to illustrate something besides the book. It will probably have to be deleted. Anyone have any other photos of Calvino? Recury 21:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Recury - You may be right. Perhaps a way around this sort of thing is to print a thumb of the full book jacket (including author's image, with a proper caption identifying the book, year, and publisher). By clicking on the the thumb, the reader should see an enlarged jacket with a reasonably large image of the author (depending, of course, on how large the original uploaded image was). I think that showing a full book jacket is consistent with the policy at Wikipedia:Fair_use. There are certainly lots of articles out there with pictures of movie posters and the box covers of video games. From a publisher's point of view, this is free advertising. -WikiPedant 05:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

That wouldn't work either, since one of the counterexamples listed there is:

An image of a magazine cover, used only to illustrate the article on the person whose photograph is on the cover.

Which is pretty much the same thing, except that we'd be using a book cover instead of a magazine cover. Showing a full book jacket is fair use, but only if it is used to illustrate the article about the book, not the person pictured. So for example, I'm pretty sure the biography of Calvino has a large photo of him on the cover and we could use an image of that to illustrate an article on the biography itself, but using it in this article would violate fair use. Recury 13:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Recury - I think it would be consistent with the policy at Wikipedia:Fair_use to use an image of the full jacket of any book authored by Calvino himself, as long as the book is mentioned as one of his works in the Calvino article. (I believe you are correct, though, that it would be inappropriate to use an image of the jacket of a biography of Calvino written by someone other than Calvino.) -WikiPedant 17:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't mean it would not be fair use because someone else wrote the biography. I mean it would not be fair use because the only fair use rationale for book covers given is to illustrate the book itself. If you are including the little photo from inside the dust jacket as part of it to show what he looks like, then that isn't fair use. Plus it would look terrible. Recury 18:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Recury - Well, we may have to agree to disagree about this matter. I feel confident that, in an article about an author, it is indeed fair use to show the full jacket of a book by that author if the book itself is mentioned in the article. This sort of situation is covered in the second sentence of the counterexample which you partially cited earlier from Wikipedia:Fair_use: "An image of a magazine cover, used only to illustrate the article on the person whose photograph is on the cover. However, if that magazine issue itself is notable enough to be a topic within the article, then fair use may apply." As for how good/bad it would look, that would vary depending on the jacket design. Some jackets have a clean, simple design with a good-sized photo of the author. -WikiPedant 18:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope this resolves matters. Richard G. Shewmaker 08:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Bibliography

I'm going to do some work on the bibliography. There's some confusion in it between the publication dates of his works in Italian and later translations. In a number of cases the publication date given is the date an item originally printed in a magazine was published in book form.

His short stories and novellas present a real challenge, not only because many were first printed in magazines, but because some were printed in book form several times in combination with others.

Another challenge is that not all of his work was translated into English. I'm pretty sure a few of the titles were translated differently too.

The bibliography consists primarily of his fiction, but some non-fiction is in it as well. He wrote a tremendous amount of non-fiction: literary essays, lectures and introductions in great part. It probably makes sense to separate those.

I have almost all of his fiction in Italian. I have only a very small amount of his non-fiction but several books about him which provide a lot of information about his earlier works. I only have one of his books in English. I'll add the story titles for each of the collections since I have them on hand.

I'll bring up anything questionable here. Richard G. Shewmaker 23:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd be personally interested in alternative english translations. Everything I've seen so far is from William Weaver. —Quiddity 05:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Quiddity. Many thanks for your kind encouragement. Martin McLaughlin's Italo Calvino (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998) has a "Translations in English" section in its bibliography (p. 175-176) where the following translaters are listed: Archibald Colquhoun, Peggy Wright, William Weaver, George Martin, Tim Parks, Patrick Creagh (Six Memos for the Next Millenium), and Martin McLaughlin (revised Colquhoun's translation of The Path to the Spiders' Nests). I'll make a note today on translators and titles in the Calvino article. All best --Jumbolino (talk) 08:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The bibliography of secondary sources is most incomplete. I added works but there is more to be done. The reference list is inappropriate. Only one list is cited and the author is not even mentioned. Wrong! Dr. Constance Markey —Preceding unsigned comment added by Consrance Markey (talk • contribs) 21:31, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Further reading

Despite "Constance Markey"'s misunderstanding of secondary sources here (sources that were used in the article itself) and his/her disruptive behaviour, the bibliography proposed by this editor is solid and helpful (I'm familiar with each reference, in particular, Ricci and Markey - the latter academic not to be confused with the "Constance Markey" editor) and propose that the list be included under the heading "Further reading". If no one objects, I'll insert the list below (revised and cleaned up). --Jumbolino (talk) 10:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Benussi, Cristina (1989). Introduzione a Calvino. Rome: Laterza.
• Cannon, JoAnn (1981). Italo Calvino: Writer and Critic. Ravenna: Longo Press.
• Gabriele, Tomassina (1994). Italo Calvino: Eros and Language. Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
• Jeannet, Angela M. (2000) Under the Radiant Sun and the Crescent Moon. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Markey, Constance (1999). Italo Calvino. A Journey Toward Postmodernism. Gainsville: Florida University Press.
• —. Interview. "Italo Calvino: The Contemporary Fabulist" in Italian Quarterly 23, no. 88 (1982): pp. 77-85.
• Ricci, Franco (1990). Difficult Games: A Reading of I racconti by Italo Calvino. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurie University Press.

Table format

I've converted the Fiction list into a table. Any objections, or should I continue? -- Quiddity (talk) 09:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Please continue as it makes, in my view, for a more comfortable consultation. --Jumbolino (talk) 12:57, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Please feel free to ask, if there are any problems or difficulties. I tried to do some basic fact checking whilst converting, and added some alternative translation-editions, so hopefully it is especially useful now. :)

There are still a few missing entries. I'll try to work on these later, and will start a new section below, for omissions.

Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Questions

• the single short stories - I'm not sure whether to leave the short stories "The Argentine Ant" and "The Watcher" where they are, in the "Fiction" section, or, if just naming the titles in the collections that contain them, would be sufficient? (I don't know how long those 2 stories are, nor how significant). I'm under theimpression that these 2 were published as standalone volumes initially, hence might deserve placement in this section.
  Similarly, "A Plunge into Real Estate" and "Smog", although I know those 2 are novella-sized.
  Feel free to advise :)
• the "Libretti" section - are there actually any full translations of these libretti, or are the English titles that are given just a straight translation of the title itself...? (If so, I'll rearrange the table structure to make that clear) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Omissions and completion

Okay, I think the article currently lists all the major works that were translated into English, and a few major untranslated works. FYI, I was mainly using these pages as guides (plus more that I've misplaced the links to), plus the few hardcopies I have at hand:

• http://www.amazon.com/Italo-Calvino-Martin-L-McLaughlin/dp/0748609172/ (good bibliography section at end, though some publication dates are not the earliest actual years)
• http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Calvino-European-American-Literature/dp/0872498581/
• http://kirjasto.sci.fi/calvino.htm
• http://www.sodsbrood.com/calvino/calbib.htm
• http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Calvino_Italo.html
• http://www.iblist.com/author1346.htm
• it:Italo Calvino

I have removed a couple of items that don't appear to have ever been translated directly ("I racconti" and "Cosmicomiche vecchie e nuove"), as the complete list of his Italian works would be too vast for this article.

Let me/us know here, if there's anything missing, or if anyone needs help adding or shifting content. Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Fascism

I got a little lost at the mention of his belonging to a Fascist group in his youth... its placement early on lets one think he held these views as an adult. I'm curious about the source for this, and if true, and that membership was compulsory, maybe this just isn't important enough to include... it gives an odd impression, since he was anti-Fascist and actually fought fot the Resistance... just a thought Semodisesamo (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Copyright problem

This article has been reverted by a bot to this version as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) This has been done to remove User:Accotink2's contributions as they have a history of extensive copyright violation and so it is assumed that all of their major contributions are copyright violations. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. VWBot (talk) 13:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Unitareas

Unitareas, I really appreciate your attempt to prove that a person who had been in the Communist Party for 12 years was not a communist. Now stop it, please. (Same goes for Calvino being an outspoken atheist). You must consider that biographical details should not be changed according to the editor's will.--SandorKrasna (talk) 16:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The page says he left the communist party and was a socialist. It also says he was non-religious, so he could be agnostic. Unless you can add citations saying he was still a communist after he left and was an atheist, then I will remove the un-cited categories. --Unitareas (talk) 00:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

As to your phrase, "he could be agnostic": it violates NPOV as this is speculation based on personal interpretation. Moreover, the article does not state that he was a card-carrying member of the Italian Socialist Party but that he espoused the democratic virtues of Socialism: not at all the same thing. I do agree, however, on verifiable references as a touchstone and will be furnishing these along with various proposals to resolve this minor dispute. In the meantime, the fact remains that you are constantly removing these categories based on your own agenda and ignorance of Calvino's life and work while refusing to engage discussion or even attempt to understand the viewpoints of other editors. I don't call that making a contribution to Wikipedia but simply arrogant and disruptive behaviour.--Jumbolino (talk) 10:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Your right, it does violate NPOV to speculate, so until you can find sources that say he was a communist after he left the communist party and an atheist, I will remove these categories. I never said he was a card carrying member of the Italian Socialist Party, but he did believe in "international socialism." I am removing these categories because they have no sources in the article, not based on some conspiracy ignorance "agenda". Refusing to engage discussion? What do you call writing on the talk page then? You're the one who isn't understanding my viewpoint. And don't call me arrogant and disruptive. --Unitareas (talk) 06:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Tut tut. Calvino was never a member of the Italian Socialist Party and never championed or joined another political party whether Socialist or Communist after leaving the ICP in 1957. A verifiable reference on this point has been added to the article and anyone familiar with Wikipedia's articles on the ISP and the ICP will agree: to categorize him as an Italian Socialist is a blatant error. The quotation by Calvino's Italian editors is on "the democratic perspectives" of Communism-Socialism, period, and the poor translation has since been rectified. The article also states that he was a member of the Communist party (an historical fact) and this permits classifying him in the category of "Italian communists". I can find no rule at Wikipedia saying one cannot classify a former Communist as such; if the rule exists, then please provide it. Moreover, correctly categorizing him as such helps anyone consulting the list to discover the article and the author's past. Finally, Calvino described himself in two separate essays as an "atheist" and "non-religious". The verifiable source I provided confirms this. And so much for the arrogant, the disruptive, and the ignorant.--Jumbolino (talk) 09:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Following what has been done for Calvino, Unitareas's deletions should be reverted for Andrea Camilleri [1], Mario Monicelli [2], Marco Bellocchio [3], Giovanna Mezzogiorno [4], Gabriele d'Annunzio [5], Daniele Luttazzi [6], Margherita Hack [7], and many more.--Sum (talk) 20:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

those edits are fine. If there is no verifiability, then I can appropriately remove it. Looks like you don't know basic wikipedia knowledge. --Unitareas (talk) 08:20, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Cyrano de Bergerac

Was Calvino interested in the writer Cyrano de Bergerac (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Cyrano_de_Bergerac_(writer))? If so, the article incorrectly links to the play by Rostand. If, on the other hand, he was interested in Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, then the article should be edited to name Rostand, in parallel with the remainder of the list which is entirely made up of the names of writers. zadignose (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

but all were deemed defective

The use of the passive tense is maddening. Were deemed defective by whom? Rick Norwood (talk) 00:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Before diving into correcting the bibliography ...

I thought I'd check to see if anybody's interested enough to comment re: what I'm proposing to do. There are inaccuracies in publication dates and manner of publication (together vs. singly; novel vs. story vs. collection of stories; genre; and more) that I think are worth taking the time to straighten up. That said, I'd rather not if it just turns into a pissing match. I don't have the time for that.

I own almost all of the book versions of Calvino's works (in Italian) and from them it's easy enough to see when the dates indicated in this article are inaccurate as well as when different titles were published together in book form (vs. magazine) for the first time.

Please let me know if you feel strongly about this one way or another. Many thanks. Tadiew (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm confident you'll do an excellent clean up. Best --Jumbolino (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

TYVM. It's very nice getting a response. Please let me know if I use the wrong way of referring to the books. Tadiew (talk) 01:47, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

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True to its historic roots ...

"True to its historic roots, the Waldensian movement today is centred on Piedmont in Northern Italy" is a poster child for wp:OR. (I should say more, hopefully soon.)
--Jerzy•t 18:41, 20 April 2018 (UTC)