The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Italo CalvinoRead
I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.
Interpretation
The quote reflects an effort to simplify and lighten narratives and language.
Italo Calvino expresses his artistic endeavor to strip away unnecessary complexities in various forms, be it human relationships, physical places, or the very stories we tell. By seeking to 'remove weight,' he implies a desire for clarity, purity, and accessibility in art and communication, suggesting that simplicity can lead to deeper understanding and engagement.
In practice
During a lecture on storytelling, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of clarity in narratives.
The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment when you make the big leap; the opportunity to express yourself is offered that once, and you untie the knot within you then or never again.
...and every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells.
Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.
The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.
Fantasy is like jam. . . . You have to spread it on a solid piece of bread. If not, it remains a shapeless thing . . . out of which you can’t make anything.
I am a writer... I am a genius of a writer; I have it in me. I am writing the best poems of my life; they will make my name.
Pop art is a way of liking things.
Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me.
The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.
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