Some books are poetical, they move us instantly for their simplicity and beauty (the two often coincide). Italo Calvino is a great master of contemporary fables and “almost realistic” novels: his Marcovaldo, who looks for nature around the city, inspires in the reader an immediate tenderness. The book consists of twenty short stories, divided into the four seasons, whose protagonist is always him, the bewildered Marcovaldo. He has a candid soul and he’s the penniless father of a large family, who dreams of an unlikely return to nature like an out-of-place citizen. The context in which he lives is a kind of non-place: an indefinite and almost abstract city, a symbol of every urban environment, in which the comic misadventures of our character take on a universal meaning, reminding us of all the nonsense connected to our human lives, in a sort of journey between illusion and disillusionment, between impulse and loneliness, with a bittersweet background that pervades the reader gradually while going through the book. But Marcovaldo is not a pessimist: he is always ready to get back into play, trying new tricks, discovering new and more congenial corners of the world. The author’s grandeur in also in keeping an absolute lirysm all over the book. A book that fits those who are not resigned, whether adult or child.

Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo
Italian Edition: Oscar Mondadori