Grains of Sand in a Sea of Objects: Italo Calvino as Essayist. Hume, K. Modern Language Review, 87(1):72--85, January, 1992. ![Grains of Sand in a Sea of Objects: Italo Calvino as Essayist [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper abstract bibtex This article examines author Italo Calvino's construction of reality in the essays and journalistic pieces in comparison with the metaphysic he works out in his fiction. Throughout his adult life, Calvino found post-war culture and society fundamentally repellent, and in so far as he talks about a world out there, his picture of this culture constitutes his reality. He persistently expresses such negative assessments through private image complexes that he attaches to pulviscolo and sea--a dust-cloud of minimal units, and the flux such units become when too numerous to control in any fashion. The essays record three basic responses to the world defined as particles and sea. These involve strategies for turning the units into narrative; strategies for pigeonholing the units in paradigmatic systems, and strategies for imitating the units: literary mimeses or mirrors. Calvino applies such strategies to an impressive assortment of cultural endeavours. Somewhere between the metaphysical and the social elements in Calvino's vision lies a third, the complex interconnectedness of everything. Paradoxically, minimal units are almost unbridgeably separate from each other, yet in the aggregate they form untidy wholes that can intersect and collide. The ability to embrace multiplicity is something Calvino demands in a reader, or indeed in an intelligent human facing the social world. Given the cerebral qualities of Calvino's fiction, one is not surprised that his responses to reality are also cerebral in his essays. Both his own strategies for handling reality, as evinced in his commentaries, and the subjects upon which he chooses to write show an overwhelming concern with two mental activities: the production of narrative and the construction of system. A third strategy is the impulse to imitate reality.
@article{ hume_grains_1992,
title = {Grains of {Sand} in a {Sea} of {Objects}: {Italo} {Calvino} as {Essayist}},
volume = {87},
issn = {00267937},
shorttitle = {Grains of {Sand} in a {Sea} of {Objects}},
url = {http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17533611&site=ehost-live},
abstract = {This article examines author Italo Calvino's construction of reality in the essays and journalistic pieces in comparison with the metaphysic he works out in his fiction. Throughout his adult life, Calvino found post-war culture and society fundamentally repellent, and in so far as he talks about a world out there, his picture of this culture constitutes his reality. He persistently expresses such negative assessments through private image complexes that he attaches to pulviscolo and sea--a dust-cloud of minimal units, and the flux such units become when too numerous to control in any fashion. The essays record three basic responses to the world defined as particles and sea. These involve strategies for turning the units into narrative; strategies for pigeonholing the units in paradigmatic systems, and strategies for imitating the units: literary mimeses or mirrors. Calvino applies such strategies to an impressive assortment of cultural endeavours. Somewhere between the metaphysical and the social elements in Calvino's vision lies a third, the complex interconnectedness of everything. Paradoxically, minimal units are almost unbridgeably separate from each other, yet in the aggregate they form untidy wholes that can intersect and collide. The ability to embrace multiplicity is something Calvino demands in a reader, or indeed in an intelligent human facing the social world. Given the cerebral qualities of Calvino's fiction, one is not surprised that his responses to reality are also cerebral in his essays. Both his own strategies for handling reality, as evinced in his commentaries, and the subjects upon which he chooses to write show an overwhelming concern with two mental activities: the production of narrative and the construction of system. A third strategy is the impulse to imitate reality.},
number = {1},
urldate = {2015-09-26TZ},
journal = {Modern Language Review},
author = {Hume, Kathryn},
month = {January},
year = {1992},
keywords = {CALVINO, Italo, 1923-1985, ESSAYS, LITERATURE, METAPHYSICS, METAPHYSICS in literature, REALITY, REALITY in literature},
pages = {72--85}
}
Downloads: 0
{"_id":"eMBqPfBmR5skaDWQP","bibbaseid":"hume-grainsofsandinaseaofobjectsitalocalvinoasessayist-1992","downloads":0,"creationDate":"2015-10-02T11:26:00.015Z","title":"Grains of Sand in a Sea of Objects: Italo Calvino as Essayist","author_short":["Hume, K."],"year":1992,"bibtype":"article","biburl":"http://bibbase.org/zotero/godfuel","bibdata":{"abstract":"This article examines author Italo Calvino's construction of reality in the essays and journalistic pieces in comparison with the metaphysic he works out in his fiction. Throughout his adult life, Calvino found post-war culture and society fundamentally repellent, and in so far as he talks about a world out there, his picture of this culture constitutes his reality. He persistently expresses such negative assessments through private image complexes that he attaches to pulviscolo and sea--a dust-cloud of minimal units, and the flux such units become when too numerous to control in any fashion. The essays record three basic responses to the world defined as particles and sea. These involve strategies for turning the units into narrative; strategies for pigeonholing the units in paradigmatic systems, and strategies for imitating the units: literary mimeses or mirrors. Calvino applies such strategies to an impressive assortment of cultural endeavours. Somewhere between the metaphysical and the social elements in Calvino's vision lies a third, the complex interconnectedness of everything. Paradoxically, minimal units are almost unbridgeably separate from each other, yet in the aggregate they form untidy wholes that can intersect and collide. The ability to embrace multiplicity is something Calvino demands in a reader, or indeed in an intelligent human facing the social world. Given the cerebral qualities of Calvino's fiction, one is not surprised that his responses to reality are also cerebral in his essays. Both his own strategies for handling reality, as evinced in his commentaries, and the subjects upon which he chooses to write show an overwhelming concern with two mental activities: the production of narrative and the construction of system. A third strategy is the impulse to imitate reality.","author":["Hume, Kathryn"],"author_short":["Hume, K."],"bibtex":"@article{ hume_grains_1992,\n title = {Grains of {Sand} in a {Sea} of {Objects}: {Italo} {Calvino} as {Essayist}},\n volume = {87},\n issn = {00267937},\n shorttitle = {Grains of {Sand} in a {Sea} of {Objects}},\n url = {http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17533611&site=ehost-live},\n abstract = {This article examines author Italo Calvino's construction of reality in the essays and journalistic pieces in comparison with the metaphysic he works out in his fiction. Throughout his adult life, Calvino found post-war culture and society fundamentally repellent, and in so far as he talks about a world out there, his picture of this culture constitutes his reality. He persistently expresses such negative assessments through private image complexes that he attaches to pulviscolo and sea--a dust-cloud of minimal units, and the flux such units become when too numerous to control in any fashion. The essays record three basic responses to the world defined as particles and sea. These involve strategies for turning the units into narrative; strategies for pigeonholing the units in paradigmatic systems, and strategies for imitating the units: literary mimeses or mirrors. Calvino applies such strategies to an impressive assortment of cultural endeavours. Somewhere between the metaphysical and the social elements in Calvino's vision lies a third, the complex interconnectedness of everything. Paradoxically, minimal units are almost unbridgeably separate from each other, yet in the aggregate they form untidy wholes that can intersect and collide. The ability to embrace multiplicity is something Calvino demands in a reader, or indeed in an intelligent human facing the social world. Given the cerebral qualities of Calvino's fiction, one is not surprised that his responses to reality are also cerebral in his essays. Both his own strategies for handling reality, as evinced in his commentaries, and the subjects upon which he chooses to write show an overwhelming concern with two mental activities: the production of narrative and the construction of system. A third strategy is the impulse to imitate reality.},\n number = {1},\n urldate = {2015-09-26TZ},\n journal = {Modern Language Review},\n author = {Hume, Kathryn},\n month = {January},\n year = {1992},\n keywords = {CALVINO, Italo, 1923-1985, ESSAYS, LITERATURE, METAPHYSICS, METAPHYSICS in literature, REALITY, REALITY in literature},\n pages = {72--85}\n}","bibtype":"article","id":"hume_grains_1992","issn":"00267937","journal":"Modern Language Review","key":"hume_grains_1992","keywords":"CALVINO, Italo, 1923-1985, ESSAYS, LITERATURE, METAPHYSICS, METAPHYSICS in literature, REALITY, REALITY in literature","month":"January","number":"1","pages":"72--85","shorttitle":"Grains of Sand in a Sea of Objects","title":"Grains of Sand in a Sea of Objects: Italo Calvino as Essayist","type":"article","url":"http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17533611&site=ehost-live","urldate":"2015-09-26TZ","volume":"87","year":"1992","bibbaseid":"hume-grainsofsandinaseaofobjectsitalocalvinoasessayist-1992","role":"author","urls":{"Paper":"http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17533611&site=ehost-live"},"keyword":["CALVINO","Italo","1923-1985","ESSAYS","LITERATURE","METAPHYSICS","METAPHYSICS in literature","REALITY","REALITY in literature"],"downloads":0,"html":""},"search_terms":["grains","sand","sea","objects","italo","calvino","essayist","hume"],"keywords":["calvino","italo","1923-1985","essays","literature","metaphysics","metaphysics in literature","reality","reality in literature"],"authorIDs":[],"dataSources":["A7aHK2QX8jFuEPZsu"]}