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"The Cloven Viscount" by Italo Calvino

Back Cover

"During a battle against the Turks, Medard Terralba, Chevalier genoa, is cut in two by a cannonball. Its two halves continue to live separately, one doing good, the other mutilating everything in its path.

This story is brimming with humor and cynicism. Calvino's imaginary world where severed fingers indicate the road ahead, where the lepers live a happy, yet all the colors of reality. And The Cloven Viscount brilliantly proves that virtue as the absolute evil are equally inhuman. "

Notice Emmanuel

prefaced my reading of our book of the month of February ( If on a winter's night a traveler ), this short novel was for me the opportunity to experience the style of Italo Calvino, a famous Italian novelist of the twentieth century. Both say immediately, that first glimpse was more than satisfactory as the topics are fun condensed in this little gem.

The story told by The Cloven Viscount is totally exuberant adventure that is the Viscount of Terralba Medard, sliced into two entities opposite along a line passing through the nose and navel during a battle. Or rather should we say the peregrinations of its two halves, one good and one bad that sowing misery and hope among the people of the province, competing as it should be representatives of these trends antithetical.

However, if you are not totally allergic to the unlikelihood, this original and simple idea immediately gives the narrative an air of philosophical tale that encourages reading between the lines and the many moral reflections are blown Calvino. Starting with a formidable critic of Manichaeism, represented by two half-Viscounts unsubtle and therefore necessarily wrong. But we also appreciate the size of bildungsroman for young narrator at the gates of adulthood, or small spears aimed at false devotees, extremities which can lead to the exclusion ...

All this in a light style and full of heartfelt irony that lies on place names and characters (Préchampignon, Pierreclou) details incongruous but delicious (fingers cut to indicate the path on the battlefield, goat and duck Pamela who follow it to the church, the antics of Dr. Trelauwney). The reading is made even easier and enjoyable, with the ability to navigate its way between the different levels of reading none of which is to denigrate.

To read or not?

Oh yes! Easy, entertaining, enlightening, philosophical tale of the twentieth century is a reading of the recommendations, which could also advantageously replace a few old-fashioned standards of our literature programs at the college. It seems more that this novel opens a trilogy (entitled Our Ancestors) also consists of Baron Perché and Nonexistent Knight. Delicious moments ahead!