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The "memos" are lectures on certain literary qualities whose virtues Calvino wished to recommend to the then-approaching millennium. He intended to devote one lecture to each of six qualities: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency. Though he completed the first five, he died before writing the last. [2]
During the summer of 1985, Calvino prepared a series of texts on literature for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures to be delivered at Harvard University in the fall. On September 6, 1985, Calvino suffered a stroke in his villa in Roccamare, where he was preparing for a lecture tour of the United States.
In a 1985 interview with Gregory Lucente, Calvino stated If on a winter's night a traveler was "clearly" influenced by the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. [4] The book was also influenced by the author's membership in the literary group Oulipo. [5] The structure of the text is said to be an adaptation of the structural semiology of A. J. Greimas. [5]
Invisible Cities is an example of Calvino's use of combinatory literature, and shows influences of semiotics and structuralism. In the novel, the reader finds themselves playing a game with the author, wherein they must find the patterns hidden in the book.
Combinatory literature is a type of fiction writing in which the author relies and draws on concepts outside of general writing practices and applies them to the creative process. This method of writing challenges conventional structuralist processes and approaches.
Clark and Calvino come to a similar conclusion that when a literary work is analyzed for what makes it 'classic', that in just the act of analysis or as Clark says "the anatomical dissection", [16] the reader can end up destroying the unique pleasure that mere enjoyment a work of literature can hold.
Elio Vittorini and Italo Calvino edited the magazine until 1966. [4] [5] The magazine, published by Giulio Einaudi, [6] had its headquarters in Torino. [7] It covered monographic topics and included writings of novice Italian authors. [2] It also featured writings on newly developed critical literary theories, including Roland Barthes' theory. [2]
Writing in The New York Times in 1984, Franco Ferrucci noted of Calvino that: "Even early in his career, his rhetorical virtuosity disguised the subtlety and depth of his vision - especially in some of the stories in Marcovaldo, like The City Lost in the Snow, A Saturday of Sun, Sand and Sleep and The Wrong Stop. He writes lightly and jauntily ...