Customer Reviews

Cosmicomics.

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Ever since our ancestors started looking into the night sky, the saw patterns and connections between the stars, moons and planets, and used stories and myths to imbue those patterns with meaning and structure. With the big hindsight of the scientific worldview, all those ancient stories may seem quaint and naïve. And indeed, the advent of modern astronomy and astrophysics has greatly enriched and deepened our understanding of the Cosmos. But these wonderful new insights should not be taken in opposition to our imagination when we stare in the sky. And this is the starting point of Italo Calvino's wonderful book "Cosmicomics." It is in a sense a variation on the theme of Cosmos. Each one of the chapters in the book takes a certain scientific fact about the Cosmos, its evolution and the present state, and turns it into an imaginative story with a deeply personal theme. The main protagonist, whimsically named Qfwfq, is present in many forms throughout history of the Cosmos and he narrates its main events through very personal eyes. Many of the stories are love stories of the most imaginative kind, which is not surprising since Calvino is known and excels at that genre. Overall this is a wonderful book that tries to reestablish a very human face of the Cosmos. I highly recommend it.

In the beginning, there was... Qfwfq? Italo Calvino apparently thought so -- his magical-realist fantasy "Cosmicomics" is one of the two best novels he ever wrote. Enchanting, surreal and whimsical, this is a look at the history of the cosmos that you will never find in any astronomy books.

Qfwfq is an ancient being -- he was a child playing with his family when the matterless void began to produce.... "things." Along with others of his kind, he has lived an immeasurably long lifetime, watching the Big Bang itself -- uniquely described in this case -- and the galaxy form, the earth cool and start to produce life.

And so Qfwfq goes through the ages, with all the rivalries, crushes, lost loves and exciting discoveries that a person experiences in their life (even though his life is uncounted millions long). And behind each of his experiences is a great cosmic event -- the Big Bang itself is caused by a loving aunt-like friend, an adolescent crush follows the moon away from the Earth, a rivalry forms between himself and the nasty Kwgwk, and his first love is doomed by his love of color on Earth's forming surface.

It takes a truly unique imagination to create something like this -- Calvino takes forming planets, whirling galaxies and ultraviolet rays, and gives them a whimsical spin. One moment he is taking your breath away with his descriptions of the Milky Way, the next he's getting smiles for the image of Qfwfq and his pals playing marbles with hydrogen atoms.

It's that mixture of grandeur and innocent whimsy that makes "Cosmicomics" so good. Not to mention, of course, Calvino's talent for poetic prose. In less than a paragraph, he can convey the vastness of the universe; in less than a chapter, he can describe the beauty of primeval Earth. In detail. Now that's really something.

Most striking of all may be the story of a motherly she-particle, whose love for him and the other beings caused "the concept of space and, properly speaking, space itself, and time, and universal gravitation, and the gravitation universe, making possible billions and billions of suns, and of planets, and fields of wheat." It takes a few minutes to sink in that Calvino wrote that the universe was first sparked by love.

Calvino never really explains what Qfwfq is -- I suppose he's an atom or something of the sort, although how atoms have "long silvery arms" or build bamboo bridges. Yet he shows us the lovable, fallible being trying out different forms through the epochs, sometimes lonely and sometimes not. And he gives Qfwfq such life, sweetness and enthusiasm that it's hard not to like him, even if we don't know exactly what he is.

Then again, getting into specifics might wreck the funny, poignant "Cosmicomics" -- it's about love and the universe, and not even the lead character can distract from that.

I think this is a great departure from the typical sci-fi genre. Not a typical style of writing. These are clever and imaginative. I have too many favorite. Its a great book as a gift for others or for yourself.

To read Italo Calvino is a strange and wonderful experience - no literary parallels suggest themselves. He is undoubtedly among the most original, imaginative writers of the 20th century.
Cosmicomics, then, is likely to be a revelation for the uninitiated reader, getting ready to crack the crisp, white cover and dive into its mysterious interior. What we have here is a collection of some twelve short stories tracing the history and evolution of the cosmos.
Each of them begins with a scientific premise - the moon's changing proximity to the Earth, for example, or the Big Bang theory - from which Calvino proceeds to give free rein to his imagination (much to the pleasure of the reader).
A constant guide throughout the itineraries spanning billions of light years is old Qfwfq - a sort of omnipresent cosmic particle, imbued with child-like qualities and always willing to share his quirky observations, romantic misadventures and innermost secrets.
Through the span of the stories Qfwfq confesses the nature of his affectionate tie with the moon, explores the belt of a galaxy, recalls the Universe as it was before its expansion when all of space was condensed into a singularity, the seeing of the first sunrise ever, the agony of being the last existing dinosaur and his never-ending ache for a primordial unity. The characters that are introduced throughout the stories range from a wide ontological array - abstract chemical compositions, brightly colored mollusks, gases and so on. Definitely not a conventional group but with names like (k)yK and Mrs.Vhd Vhd, how could they be?
Cosmicomics teaches its reader while remaining playful. It is at once a work that is surreal, philosophical, humorous and entertaining, without slipping into pretentiousness. The collection is masterfully translated from its original Italian by William Weaver. The writings remains beautiful, lucent and at times, gravity-defying. Calvino succeeds in making the unimaginable accessible to us, so that we can begin, at least mentally, to take leaps that span light-years. The reader should re-discover the awe, the on going 'wow' of the universe, happening at this very moment.

"And at the bottom of each of those eyes I lived, or rather another me lived, one of the images of me, and it encountered the image of her...in that beyond which opens, past the semiliquid sphere of the irises, in the darkness of the pupils, the mirrored hall of the retinas, in our true element which extends without shores, without boundaries." (Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino)

I recently obtained a new copy of COSMICOMICS after having lost my old, tattered paperback which someone borrowed and forgot to return back in the 1980s. On this rereading, I was amazed at how many of the wondrous stories I remembered, along with the gorgeous writing (in William Weaver's colloquial translation), the irony, the frequent hilarity, the many adroit and startling insights. The two tales I'd taken to heart back in the 80s, THE DINOSAURS and THE SPIRAL, turned out to be my favorites still.
The first, with its wrenching surreal last line, you might call an "animal fable," but it's not so much about the last dinosaur living among mammalian critters as it is about the eternal outsider, the stranger in a strange land. Most of Calvino's stories have as their protagonist a shy, fumbling, fussy, nerdy sort of being, the eternal academic male whom the author names "Qfwfq," an unpronounceable palindrome that is a witty lampoon of alien names in 1930s pulp magazine space opera. Whether in the form of protean energy, protoplasm or dinosaurian scales, Qfwfq is different from everyone else--sometimes selfish, irascible, petty, revenge-plotting and jealous--but always different. And recognizable. And despite all his faults, worth forgiving and loving.
In THE SPIRAL our eternal being is a conch under a shallow sea, who under a compulsion both joyous and anxious builds around himself the universe's first shell, demonstrating that art combines showing-off with longing and desire, and that love expressed as desire is the source of great art. Love is Calvino's other great theme. His lover (Qfwfq) is often fatuous, frequently engaged in futile pursuits, sometimes (I say regretfully, being a woman) sexist, but more than anything steadfast. I am reasonably sure, having read other books of his, that during his lifetime he believed that the universe was born from love and longing. Though shapes and intelligences, comprehensions and artifacts have evolved, love somehow manifests itself up through time in much the same as-yet unfulfilled and puzzling way. No orthodox theology can explain this--but only a theology called "panentheism" or process philosophy, that I believe Calvino and I share. The only God I (and, I presume, Calvino) could believe in is one that gave life to a universe in continual evolution--otherwise, how to explain art, science, free will--and love?

When I read Difficult Loves, I was impressed. I recommended it as the collection to read if you never read anything else in your life. Cosmicomics, however, has actually inspired me to stop reading for a time. It is the perfect set of short stories. There is no point in reading anything else.

Prepare to read something you are not prepared for. This book will send you into realms of storytelling that seem impossible even as you read them. Cavort with "beings" who are present at the beginning of the universe and the big bang; be present at the moment someone (or something) plays with "a thing" for the first time. A review cannot do this book justice. It is utterly mind-blowing, beautiful, funny, and profound all at the same time. The writing is crystal clear (even in translation), which adds to the book's mystique. One of the best things about this book is the sheer impossibility of making a movie out of it. It exploits the best of what written stories can give us: imagination and the freedom to evoke our own mental imagery. The images floating through my head while I read this defy description. The stories themselves defy description (as I found out when trying to convince others to read it). Why can't more books be like this?

Never would I have thought that a story about, say, an atom could be so memorable and reveal so much about human emotions. Yet in this book, Calvino does just that. Not only with atoms, but with dinosaurs and many other more ambiguous entities. For example, one of the stories personifies particles just before the Big Bang; they interact with each other as if they were humans crammed into one infinitely-small apartment. Another, and perhaps my favorite, is the tale of an entity beholding the first appearance of color on earth as the atmosphere and oceans begin to form. In the remaining stories, other "cosmological" themes are explored, such as evolution, the speed of light, and the curvature of space. To those who aren't scientifically inclined, and perhaps even to those who are, this may sound tedious or absurd, but Calvino infuses his tales with humanity and subtle wit. Humanity? in a story about Hydrogen atoms? Yes. The characters in the book, though nonhuman enitities, reveal thoughts and emotions that are so genuine and human that the reader wants to weep for them or cheer them on. This alone is a wonderful achievement, yet the stories are excellent in other respects as well, not the least of which is the the sheer imagination involved. You see, these stories are not about the Big Bang or the curvature of space, per se. They are about human struggles and emotions. But Calvino chose a unique, wondrous manner in which to convey these themes, and, as with his other books, it works beautifully.

Just a great twist on 4th wall style writing and probably the only 4th wall book that doesn't feel like it's written for the Weird Al and Mad mag crowd (of which I was a proud member when I was 13 but that's not the point).

I have never read a book quite like this one. It is definitely not a novel, in as much as there is not a set beginning, middle, climax and denouement, nor one or more characters that we follow throughout the book in a series of adventures and incidents. While the book contains a dozen short stories with a common link that may be described as science fiction, I would not call it strictly a book of this genre.

"Cosmicomics" may instead be described as a series of beautifully and imaginatively written poetic fables that defy time and space. They take place prior to, during and after the galaxies and the universe were formed, throughout myriad evolutionary cycles, prior to the birth of mankind, and even ante-dating the beginning of what is commonly called life. These tales concern atoms, molecules and other worldly beings interacting, almost interacting, and even repelling one another while travelling between gravitational and anti-gravitational forces. They may be floating around in space, chasing each other or being chased at one and the same time. There is a story of betting on the chance occurrances of historical, pre-historical, and pre-planetary incidents, and of lovers living in a time before colors, when black, white and shades of gray were the natural order of things. There is a wondrous tale of a time during the formation of the universe, when the earth and the moon abutted one another and people utilized a ladder to climb from the earth to the moon to spoon out milk. One of the most beautiful of these parables concerns the last dinosaur to survive on earth and his relationship and near love affair with one of the new ones. This is truly a book to cherish.