Italian Folktales

Rating:
Summary: Calvino is spellbinding
Review: Calvino has been one of my all-time favorite writers ever since I encountered his masterpiece Invisible Cities. Much of his fiction experiments intricately--and successfully--with the conventions of storytelling. Italian Folktales, though, reveals a completely different dimension of Calvino. These stories are the fruit of painstaking ethnographic and archival research, retold by a master storyteller. In addition to being a collection of enchanting stories, the book also gives the reader tremendous insight into the life of the folktale. Elements of one story--characters, bits of dialogue, and in some cases even considerable fragments of plot--surface in another story time and time again. Calvino has also left some of the warts untouched--every now and then a story is obviously truncated, forgets to mention what becomes of an important character, or completely switches plot halfway through. Somehow these are very satisfying things to notice. Other nice touches include the introduction, where the author discusses how he collected the stories, and the attribution of each story to a specific region of Italy.

The translation is good, though I wish I could read Italian!

Rating:
Summary: Great Stories For Every Age
Review: Coming from an Italian heritage, this book feels like a little bit of me from the past. I can imagine my family telling these stories to each other in Asiago, after eating their meals. It's nice to read your favorite stories over and over, and never bore of them. I really love these stories, and I read them to my cousins when they come over, and they enjoy the too. It's a great book for the whole family to enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Magical, wacky tales and magical, beautiful prose
Review: Here's a tip of the hat to the English translator (George Martin) of this wonderful collection. If you've noted the glowing reviews and prizes, you might still hold back, thinking "Well, I'm sure it's fantastic in Italian, but the English probably doesn't quite capture the brilliance of the original." Maybe so, but -- unless you're fluent in Italian -- there's no reason to skip this sparkling, wonderful English translation. It's -- well, delicious.

I first read this book years ago -- out loud, to my kids, and it quickly became a family favorite. Be aware that this collection isn't your usual compendium of "I've heard that before" stories. They're all rather strange; sometimes, they're downright weird, as if the good folk of traditional Italian villages were tuned into the X-Files several centuries ago. Some of them -- my favorite example is "Ari, Ari, Ari, Money, Money, Money" -- are flat-out, bust-your-gut hilarious.

If the stories don't do you in, you'll find some of the most gorgeous and unforgettable English you'll ever read, thanks to the brilliant translation. It's spare - it's closer to Hemingway than Faulkner, perfectly pitched to its task - and exquisitely structured and paced.

This is a book that truly belongs on every shelf. Give it for the holidays, birthdays, or for the hell of it -- and, please (if you love English and fine writing) treat yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Italian Folktales
Review: I love this book.Some of the stories are exactly the same yet told in very different ways. Everything is here, humour, sadness, religion, fear, the animal world, the spiritual world, brutality, witchcraft, the will to survive and the list goes on. I bought my two weeks ago, but it looks like I've had it for two years.

Rating:
Summary: I've read this to pieces, literally
Review: I was first given this book at age 5, and since then have gone through 4 copies. I've read it so often that I know all the stories by heart, and still keep reading. The tales are beautifully written and edited, and cover religion, love, feats of greatness, and foolish acts. For any lover of the folktale/fairytale genre, this book is a must have. I would recommend buying the hardback version, because if you love it like me -- the binding will fall apart after the first 3 or 4 reads.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, best in folktales
Review: I've read a lot of folktales since childhood, and this is the one book that I love the most. There is something magic in the way these stories go, the way they were told by such a great writer as Italo Calvino, who was almost awarded a Nobel Prize. Unfortunately he passed away the same year, so he couldn't get this award. But this great book will live on.