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Mr. Palomar Paperback – September 22, 1986

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 212 ratings

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Mr. Palomar, whose name purposely evokes that of the famous telescope, is a seeker after knowledge, a visionary in a world sublime and ridiculous. Whether contemplating a cheese, a woman’s breasts, or a gorilla’s behavior, he brings us a vision of a world familiar by consensus, fragmented by the burden of individual perception. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
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Calvino
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About the Author

ITALO CALVINO (1923–1985) attained worldwide renown as one of the twentieth century’s greatest storytellers. Born in Cuba, he was raised in San Remo, Italy, and later lived in Turin, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere. Among his many works are Invisible Cities, If on a winters night a traveler, The Baron in the Trees, and other novels, as well as numerous collections of fiction, folktales, criticism, and essays. His works have been translated into dozens of languages.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Mr. Palomar

By Italo Calvino, William Weaver

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Copyright © 1983 Giulio Einaudi Editore, S.p.A., Torino
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-15-662780-1

Contents

Title Page,
Contents,
Copyright,
Mr. Palomar's Vacation,
Mr. Palomar on the Beach,
Mr. Palomar in the Garden,
Mr. Palomar Looks at the Sky,
Mr. Palomar in the City,
Mr. Palomar on the Terrace,
Mr. Palomar Does the Shopping,
Mr. Palomar at the Zoo,
The Silences of Mr. Palomar,
Mr. Palomar's Journeys,
Mr. Palomar in Society,
The Meditations of Mr. Palomar,
Index,
About the Author,
Connect with HMH,


CHAPTER 1

Mr. Palomar's Vacation


MR. PALOMAR ON THE BEACH

Reading a wave


The sea is barely wrinkled, and little waves strike the sandy shore. Mr. Palomar is standing on the shore, looking at a wave. Not that he is lost in contemplation of the waves. He is not lost, because he is quite aware of what he is doing: he wants to look at a wave and he is looking at it. He is not contemplating, because for contemplation you need the right temperament, the right mood, and the right combination of exterior circumstances; and though Mr. Palomar has nothing against contemplation in principle, none of these three conditions applies to him. Finally, it is not "the waves" that he means to look at, but just one individual wave: in his desire to avoid vague sensations, he establishes for his every action a limited and precise object.

Mr. Palomar sees a wave rise in the distance, grow, approach, change form and color, fold over itself, break, vanish, and flow again. At this point he could convince himself that he has concluded the operation he had set out to achieve, and he could go away. But isolating one wave is not easy, separating it from the wave immediately following, which seems to push it and at times overtakes it and sweeps it away; and it is no easier to separate that one wave from the preceding wave, which seems to drag it toward the shore, unless it turns against the following wave, as if to arrest it. Then, if you consider the breadth of the wave, parallel to the shore, it is hard to decide where the advancing front extends regularly and where it is separated and segmented into independent waves, distinguished by their speed, shape, force, direction.

In other words, you cannot observe a wave without bearing in mind the complex features that concur in shaping it and the other, equally complex ones that the wave itself originates. These aspects vary constantly, so each wave is different from another wave, even if not immediately adjacent or successive; in other words, there are some forms and sequences that are repeated, though irregularly distributed in space and time. Since what Mr. Palomar means to do at this moment is simply see a wave — that is, to perceive all its simultaneous components without overlooking any of them — his gaze will dwell on the movement of the wave that strikes the shore until it can record aspects not previously perceived; as soon as he notices that the images are being repeated, he will know he has seen everything he wanted to see and he will be able to stop.

A nervous man who lives in a frenzied and congested world, Mr. Palomar tends to reduce his relations with the outside world; and, to defend himself against the general neurasthenia, he tries to keep his sensations under control insofar as possible.

The hump of the advancing wave rises more at one point than at any other, and it is here that it becomes hemmed in white. If this occurs at some distance from the shore, there is time for the foam to fold over upon itself and vanish again, as if swallowed, and at the same moment invade the whole, but this time emerging again from below, like a white carpet rising from the bank to welcome the wave that is arriving. But just when you expect that wave to roll over the carpet, you realize it is no longer wave but only carpet, and this also rapidly disappears, to become a glinting of wet sand that quickly withdraws, as if driven back by the expansion of the dry, opaque sand that moves its jagged edge forward.

At the same time, the indentations in the brow of the wave must be considered, where it splits into two wings, one stretching toward the shore from right to left and the other from left to right, and the departure point or the destination of their divergence or convergence is this negative tip, which follows the advance of the wings but is always held back, subject to their alternate overlapping until another wave, a stronger wave, overtakes it, with the same problem of divergence-convergence, and then a wave stronger still, which resolves the knot by shattering it.

Taking the pattern of the waves as model, the beach thrusts into the water some faintly hinted points, prolonged in submerged sandy shoals, shaped and destroyed by the currents at every tide. Mr. Palomar has chosen one of these low tongues of sand as his observation point, because the waves strike it on either side, obliquely, and, overrunning the half-submerged surface, they meet their opposites. So, to understand the composition of a wave, you have to consider these opposing thrusts, which are to some extent counterbalanced and to some extent added together, to produce a general shattering of thrusts and counterthrusts in the usual spreading of foam.

Mr. Palomar now tries to limit his field of observation; if he bears in mind a square zone of, say, ten meters of shore by ten meters of sea, he can carry out an inventory of all the wave movements that are repeated with varying frequency within a given time interval. The hard thing is to fix the boundaries of this zone, because if, for example, he considers as the side farthest from him the outstanding line of an advancing wave, as this line approaches him and rises it hides from his eyes everything behind it, and thus the space under examination is overturned and at the same time crushed.

In any case, Mr. Palomar does not lose heart and at each moment he thinks he has managed to see everything to be seen from his observation point, but then something always crops up that he had not borne in mind. If it were not for his impatience to reach a complete, definitive conclusion of his visual operation, looking at waves would be a very restful exercise for him and could save him from neurasthenia, heart attack, and gastric ulcer. And it could perhaps be the key to mastering the world's complexity by reducing it to its simplest mechanism.

But every attempt to define this model must take into account a long wave that is arriving in a direction perpendicular to the breakers and parallel to the shore, creating the flow of a constant, barely surfacing crest. The shifts of the waves that ruffle toward the shore do not disturb the steady impulse of this compact crest that slices them at a right angle, and there is no knowing where it comes from or where it then goes. Perhaps it is a breath of east wind that stirs the sea's surface against the deep drive that conies from the mass of water far out to sea, but this wave born of air, in passing, receives also the oblique thrusts from the water's depth and redirects them, straightening them in its own direction and bearing them along. And so the wave continues to grow and gain strength until the clash with contrary waves gradually dulls it and makes it disappear, or else twists it until it is confused in one of the many dynasties of oblique waves slammed against the shore.

Concentrating the attention on one aspect makes it leap into the foreground and occupy the square, just as, with certain drawings, you have only to close your eyes and when you open them the perspective has changed. Now, in the overlapping of crests moving in various directions, the general pattern seems broken down into sections that rise and vanish. In addition, the reflux of every wave also has a power of its own that hinders the oncoming waves. And if you concentrate your attention on these backward thrusts, it seems that the true movement is the one that begins from the shore and goes out to sea.

Is this perhaps the real result that Mr. Palomar is about to achieve? To make the waves run in the opposite direction, to overturn time, to perceive the true substance of the world beyond sensory and mental habits? No, he feels a slight dizziness, but it goes no further than that. The stubbornness that drives the waves toward the shore wins the match: in fact, the waves have swelled considerably. Is the wind about to change? It would be disastrous if the image that Mr. Palomar has succeeded painstakingly in putting together were to shatter and be lost. Only if he manages to bear all the aspects in mind at once can he begin the second phase of the operation: extending this knowledge to the entire universe.

It would suffice not to lose patience, as he soon does. Mr. Palomar goes off along the beach, tense and nervous as when he came, and even more unsure about everything.


The naked bosom

Mr. Palomar is walking along a lonely beach. He encounters few bathers. One young woman is lying on the sand taking the sun, her bosom bared. Palomar, discreet by nature, looks away at the horizon of the sea. He knows that in such circumstances, at the approach of a strange man, women often cover themselves hastily, and this does not seem right to him: because it is a nuisance for the woman peacefully sunbathing, and because the passing man feels he is an intruder, and because the taboo against nudity is implicitly confirmed; because half-respected conventions spread insecurity and incoherence of behavior rather than freedom and frankness.

And so, as soon as he sees in the distance the outline of the bronze-pink cloud of a naked female torso, he quickly turns his head in such a way that the trajectory of his gaze remains suspended in the void and guarantees his civil respect for the invisible frontier that surrounds people.

But — he thinks as he proceeds and resumes, the moment the horizon is clear, the free movement of his eyeballs — in acting like this, I display a refusal to see;or, in other words, I am finally reinforcing the convention that declares illicit any sight of the breast; that is to say, I create a kind of mental brassiere suspended between my eyes and that bosom, which, from the flash that reached the edge of my visual field, seemed to me fresh and pleasing to the eye. In other words, my not looking presupposes that I am thinking of that nakedness, worrying about it; and this is basically an indiscreet and reactionary attitude.

Returning from his stroll, Palomar again passes that bather, and this time he keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead, so that his gaze touches with impartial uniformity the foam of the retreating waves, the boats pulled up on shore, the great bath towel spread out on the sand, the swelling moon of lighter skin with the dark halo of the nipple, the outline of the coast in the haze, gray against the sky.

There — he reflects, pleased with himself, as he continues on his way — I have succeeded in having the bosom completely absorbed by the landscape, so that my gaze counted no more than the gaze of a seagull or a hake.

But is this really the right way to act? — he reflects further. Or does it not mean flattening the human person to the level of things, considering it an object, and, worse still, considering as object that which in the person is the specific attribute of the female sex? Am I not perhaps perpetuating the old habit of male superiority, hardened over the years into a habitual insolence?

He turns and retraces his steps. Now, in allowing his gaze to run over the beach with neutral objectivity, he arranges it so that, once the woman's bosom enters his field of vision, a break is noticeable, a shift, almost adarting glance. That glance goes on to graze the taut skin, withdraws, as if appreciating with a slight start the different consistency of the view and the special value it acquires, and for a moment the glance hovers in midair, making a curve that accompanies the swell of the breast from a certain distance, elusively but also protectively, and then runs on as if nothing had happened.

In this way I believe my position is made quite clear — Palomar thinks — with no possible misunderstandings. But couldn't this grazing of his eyes finally be taken for an attitude of superiority, an underestimation of what a breast is and means, as if putting it aside, on the margin, or in parentheses? So, I am relegating the bosom again to the semidarkness where centuries of sexo-maniacal puritanism and of desire considered sin have kept it. ...

This interpretation runs counter to Palomar's best intentions, for though he belongs to a human generation for whom nudity of the female bosom was associated with the idea of amorous intimacy, still he hails approvingly this change in customs, both for what it signifies as the reflection of a more broad-minded society and because this sight in particular is pleasing to him. It is this detached encouragement that he would like to be able to express with his gaze.

He does an about-face. With firm steps he walks again toward the woman lying in the sun. Now his gaze, giving the landscape a fickle glance, will linger on the breast with special consideration, but will quickly include it in an impulse of good will and gratitude for the whole, for the sun and the sky, for the bent pines and the dune and the beach and the rocks and the clouds and the seaweed, for the cosmos that rotates around those haloed cusps.

This should be enough to reassure once and for all the solitary sunbather and clear away all perverse assumptions. But the moment he approaches again, she suddenly springs up, covers herself with an impatient huff, and goes off, shrugging in irritation, as if she were avoiding the tiresome insistence of a satyr.

The dead weight of an intolerant tradition prevents anyone's properly understanding the most enlightened intentions, Palomar bitterly concludes.


The sword of the sun

When the sun begins to go down, its reflection takes form on the sea: from the horizon a dazzling patch extends all the way to the shore, composed of countless swaying glints; between one glint and the next, the opaque blue of the sea makes a dark network. The white boats, seen against the light, turn black, lose substance and bulk, as if they were consumed by that splendid speckling.

This is the hour when Mr. Palomar, belated by nature, takes his evening swim. He enters the sea, moves away from the shore; and the sun's reflection becomes a shining sword in the water stretching from the shore to him. Mr. Palomar swims in that sword, or, more precisely, that sword remains always before him; at every stroke of his, it retreats, and never allows him to overtake it. Wherever he stretches out his arms, the sea takes on its opaque evening color, which extends to the shore behind him.

As the sun sinks toward sunset, the incandescent-white reflection acquires gold and copper tones. And wherever Mr. Palomar moves, he remains the vertex of that sharp, gilded triangle; the sword follows him, pointing him out like the hand of a watch whose pivot is the sun.

"This is a special homage the sun pays to me personally," Mr. Palomar is tempted to think, or, rather, the egocentric, megalomaniac ego that dwells in him is tempted to think. But the depressive and self-wounding ego, who dwells with the other in the same container, rebuts: "Everyone with eyes sees the reflection that follows him; illusion of the senses and of the mind holds us all prisoners, always." A third tenant, a more evenhanded ego, speaks up: "This means that, no matter what, I belong to the feeling and thinking subjects, capable of establishing a relationship with the sun's rays, and of interpreting and evaluating perceptions and illusions."

Every bather swimming westward at this hour sees the strip of light aimed at him, which then dies out just a bit beyond the spot where his arm extends: each has his own reflection, which has that direction only for him and moves with him. On either side of the reflection, the water's blue is darker. "Is that the only non-illusory datum, common to all: darkness?" Mr. Palomar wonders. But the sword is imposed equally on the eye of each swimmer; there is no avoiding it. "Is what we have in common precisely what is given to each of us as something exclusively his?" The sailboards slide over the water, cutting with sidelong swerves the land wind that springs up at this hour. Erect figures hold the boom with arms extended like archers', competing for the air that snaps the canvas. When they cross the reflection, in the midst of the gold that enshrouds them the colors of the sail are muted and the outline of opaque bodies seems to enter the night.

"All this is happening not on the sea, not in the sun," the swimmer Palomar thinks, "but inside my head, in the circuits between eyes and brain. I am swimming in my mind; this sword of light exists only there; and this is precisely what attracts me. This is my element, the only one I can know in some way."

But he also thinks, "I cannot reach that sword: always there ahead, it cannot be inside me and, at the same time, something inside which I am swimming; if I see it I remain outside it, and it remains outside."


(Continues...)Excerpted from Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino, William Weaver. Copyright © 1983 Giulio Einaudi Editore, S.p.A., Torino. Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books Classics; First Edition (September 22, 1986)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0156627809
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0156627801
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 212 ratings

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Italo Calvino
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Italo Calvino (Italian: [ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno]; 15 October 1923 - 19 September 1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If on a winter's night a traveler (1979).

Admired in Britain and the United States, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death, and a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by The original uploader was Varie11 at Italian Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customers find the book enjoyable and relatable. They appreciate the subtle, beautiful imagery and insights into nature and character development. The narrative is described as a nice read with deep observations and interesting ideas.

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9 customers mention "Readability"9 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's readability. They find it enjoyable and thought-provoking, with relatable characters and complex sentences. The story is superbly crafted and rewards rereading, with shades of meaning and beauty. Readers also mention that the series of 27 vignettes is fun and recommend it.

"Italo Calvino's book, "Mr. Palomar," is a superbly crafted novel about an intellectual quest for order and reason in a chaotic and unreasonable world..." Read more

"...I wonder about another different translation. Calvino's complex sentences are delightful as is the strange story." Read more

"...; sea, there was no question that this was going to be a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking experience...." Read more

"...Though Mr. Palomar is very relatable in some ways, he is also a very introverted and detached character, and though the entire book is composed of..." Read more

5 customers mention "Beauty"5 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's beauty. They find it brilliant, with subtle and entertaining writing. The book is rich in imagery, thoughts, moods, and ideas that never become too abstract. Readers also mention it's an intellectual treat, full of profound and deep observations.

"...it a book worthy of a 5 star rating, though, is that it is equally profound in ways our intellects can never fathom." Read more

"...It is a book that rewards rereading, with shades of meaning and beauty in everything from the overall organization all the way down to individual..." Read more

"...Mr. Palomar takes time to give the item he is considering a long, detailed look...." Read more

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5 customers mention "Insight"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's insights engaging. They appreciate the thoughtful and contemplative writing style, describing it as a collection of images, thoughts, moods, and ideas.

"...is without a doubt an intellectual treat, full of profound and deep observations...." Read more

"...of unconnected stories; a collection filled with brilliantly deep observations turning the mundane into magic as Mr. Palomar thoroughly scoured the..." Read more

"...Contemplative and deliberately paced, Mr. Palomar is different from almost anything else I've read...." Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2002
    Italo Calvino's book, "Mr. Palomar," is a superbly crafted novel about an intellectual quest for order and reason in a chaotic and unreasonable world. Should this sound like rather dry and uninteresting reading, be assured that it is not. Calvino is a great story teller, and in Mr. Palomar he has found a character that provides him with a medium, a vehicle, to deliver stories of great beauty, humor, wit and pathos.
    In books about the theories of complexity and chaos there is usually a chapter dedicated to the task of explaining that it is only in the boundary between order and chaos that all of the really interesting things are possible, including life. Mr. Palomar's mistake is in thinking that things would be better (or, at least he'd be less anxious) if he could just figure out how to get everything to calmly step over to the "ordered" side of the line. He is the twentieth century's Don Quixote, not on a romantic quest but an intellectual one; not fighting off the advancing windmills (that battle has already been lost), but desperately trying to reason his way into a moment of Zen-like clarity and peace.
    It may seem that Mr. Palomar brings to his task of putting the world in order a formidable intellect. He is, indeed, very bright and often brilliant. But Calvino implies early and often that Mr. Palomar doesn't so much possess an intellect as he is possessed by one. Mr. Palomar may have the illusion that he brings his intellect to bear on one thing or another but, in truth, his intellect has its own agenda and Mr. Palomar is simply along for the ride.
    It is Mr. Palomar's inability to escape his own intellect that produces both the funniest and saddest moments in the book. The chapter entitled "The Naked Bosom" reads like the misadventures of a philosophical "Mr. Bean." In it, Mr. Palomar is walking along the beach when he spots a young lady sunning herself topless. His initial experience quickly gives way to his trying to deliver a reasonable (a perfectly reasoned) response. Should he look away? Glance? Look for a moment with casual interest? More than casual interest? What is the correct response, free of cultural conditioning? Is his cultural upbringing out of date? As he passes by, he realizes that his thinking wasn't quite right, his response not quite perfect, so he turns around and tries it again ...
    By the 4th pass, when he finally thinks he's got it right, the young woman has had enough, covers herself up, grabs her things and storms off. Mr. Palomar's reaction to the young woman's leaving in a "huff" is, as always, intellectually reasonable. He feels insulted that his efforts were not understood and he blames this, implicitly, on her failure to throw off the "dead weight of an intolerant tradition."
    Calvino knew that what he was writing would be perceived not only at an intellectual level but also as humor and he crafts his story in a way that pays tribute to both, much as a great composer will intertwine melody and harmony. But he never wants us to forget that these melodies and harmonies are parts of a larger, more subtle theme: Mr. Palomar is imprisoned by a terrible irony: the only thing preventing him from experiencing the moment of clarity and beauty he is so desperate for is the overpowering intellect he is trying to find it with.
    Mr. Palomar has far too much reason for the task and absolutely no sense. He can think, but he can't connect. This is why he has absolutely no idea how the young woman on the beach may have perceived him. Worse, he has no idea that she was anything other than a stage prop and audience for his quest for an "enlightened" response. Worse still, for him, he has no idea that he has no idea.
    Contrary to what many critics have said of "Mr. Palomar," Calvino is not praising or even paying tribute to intellect or the powers of intellectual (and scientific) observation. His point is that having reason without sense (order without due respect for the messy, chaotic connections that life and living require) is an inescapable trap. In the end, Mr. Palomar's intellect is like a black hole. He begins quite pleased to find that everything comes to mind easily, and then discovers that nothing seems to be getting back out anymore. Then he spirals into himself trying to find some sense of who he is, some place from which to take a stand, but he ends up like a singularity. And then, in an instant, he is nothing at all.
    Mr. Calvino makes his point in a way that is never didactic. He makes it in small, often subtle and frequently entertaining steps. If you accompany him along the way, he'll show you ocean waves, turtles, geckos, iguanas and weeds in the front lawn in ways you've never seen before. He'll do the same with goose fat, roof tops and, in another "Mr. Bean" moment, the stars. He'll have Mr. Palomar and an albino gorilla perform a duet for you, and perform a masterpiece in four-part harmony (played staccato, no less) with two birds and a married couple.
    This book is without a doubt an intellectual treat, full of profound and deep observations. What makes it a book worthy of a 5 star rating, though, is that it is equally profound in ways our intellects can never fathom.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2020
    I found the prose challenging. I wonder about another different translation. Calvino's complex sentences are delightful as is the strange story.
  • Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2014
    It is always such a pleasure to return to Calvino's beautifully hypnotic introspection. This is such a simple read on the surface, yet I found myself poring over passages multiple times as the layers peeled back to reveal more and more of the world through Mr. Palomar's incredibly observant eyes. Like Marcovaldo before it, Mr. Palomar invites the reader to become submersed in a worldview that most of us have neither the time nor the patience to craft for ourselves. Unlike Marcovaldo, however, this takes a much more philosophical approach to the idea of discovery of Self through observation. Instead of leaving me wistful for a time and place I can never know Mr. Palomar has given me a way to see every facet of my own time and place with a beauty heretofore reserved for the majestic and the surreal.

    From the opening passages with Mr. Palomar becoming lost in contemplation of the "barely wrinkled" sea, there was no question that this was going to be a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking experience. Mr. Palomar, of course, "is not lost, because he is quite aware of what he's doing," and so we The Reader are immediately challenged to retain the same mindset as we allow Calvino to lead us to ourselves. In a style that is almost more poetry than prose we are shown how to finally see the world around us as it is, as it was, as it will be, and our own place in it. When the crescendo peaks at just the right moment or my gaze is reflected back to me in just the right set of eyes I can see the world stretch out before me, under me, and behind me with a supernatural clarity. This clarity that seems to only exist in occasions of pure adulation or repose is something that Mr. Palomar fervently and actively seeks at all times by attempting to truly know all things that surround him. The wave on the sand, the feet of the gecko, "the pause and not the whistle" of the crow, the art of charcuterie, or the floor plan of the cheese shop all open new and expansive worlds to be, not just discovered, but known intimately.

    Yet for all of his observations empirical research, "he distrusts what he knows," and, "what he does not know keeps his spirit in a suspended state." It is this yearning that drives him to not only look but to see. It is this desire that also drives him to frustration. "It is only after you have come to know the surface of things," he says both with joy and sorrow, "that you can venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface of things is inexhaustible." Initially, I felt like this was a collection of unconnected stories; a collection filled with brilliantly deep observations turning the mundane into magic as Mr. Palomar thoroughly scoured the surface of the world for every scrap of knowledge and understanding he could glean. His searching was not, he (and I) would soon realize, simply an exercise but a journey of education and self-realization. The ultimate Truth, for me, came with the understanding that, "a thing is happy to be looked at by other things only when it is convinced that it signifies itself and nothing else." A star is a star, a giraffe a giraffe, and cheese is cheese. These things know what they are, are happy to signify to others what they are, and can truly be observed. People though... we are different, and we must learn to attain this state. Signifying oneself... knowing what you want to signify to others (and yourself) can be terrifying. It may be true that, "good opportunities for keeping quiet are never in short supply," but is the horror of having nothing to say because we are scared to reveal who we are (or want to be) not reason enough to find yourself?

    How can you truly observe something else when you don't even understand the place from which you are observing? How can you claim to love someone else when you can't love yourself if you are undefined? In the end, "we can know nothing about what is outside us if we overlook ourselves," and no amount of observing will gain us that knowledge. Beautiful though it may be, we cannot spend our lives observing and cataloging that which happens outside of us. If we ever truly see the world through the eyes of Mr. Palomar, we spend all of our time looking... seeing... but none of our time living and becoming. So we rush about and we miss much around us, but we live, we choose, and we live with what we choose... and all of this eventually becomes us. Or, perhaps, we eventually become all of that. But at least we become. We are... and then we were, and the universe will never be the same.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2013
    Overall book was what I expected substance wise, however the edge of the pages were slightly dented and since I was giving it as a gift that anoyed me. This was not described in the discription. However since the individual I gave it to will be using it as a reading copy not a collectors copy I suppose that be ok.

Top reviews from other countries

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  • Ana Pedroso
    5.0 out of 5 stars Mui bueno
    Reviewed in Spain on February 4, 2021
    Mui Bueno. Lleno de diversió. Italo Calvino en su mejor.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A favorite
    Reviewed in Canada on January 5, 2017
    When I read Calvino, one paragraph into any story and I am already immersed in his signature happy, whimsical style. You will find yourself relating to Mr. Palomar's hilarious overanalysis of everything around him.
    Calvino is a truly amazing mind, and this is my second favorite book of his, behind Invisible Cities.

    Shipping was quick and painless, and the book itself is nice to the touch.
  • Jess
    5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2015
    Loved this book! If you're looking to learn to write more descriptively, or even if you just fancy an alternate grasp on the universe, I'd recommend!
  • zito raffaele
    5.0 out of 5 stars idoneo
    Reviewed in Italy on June 6, 2014
    Ottima la traduzione inglese del complicato testo di Calvino, e perfettamente rispondente alla mia esigenza per l'elaborazione di un articolo scientifico sui metodi misti nella ricerca
  • Allen Ball
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on November 4, 2016
    Great product.