11.3.09

The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino

This slim piece of Calvino is something to chew on, a new lens, new direction. It contains a collection of intertwined stories told through the interpretation of Tarot cards by mute travelers at a mysterious crossroads. As each individual story is laid down, it is discovered that common cards are needed to accommodate them all. Calvino gives us the first stories, those that are universal; each crosses and meshes, compliments and mirrors. But the interconnectedness of the tales is more than the surface crossing of the recent trend of showing multiple tangential plots in popular books and films (e.g. Pulp Fiction, Babel, etc.), which only meet on a one-dimensional plane. The sharing of Tarots highlights the interpretive nature of storytelling, and of experience itself. Even the well-known stories that emerge (Faust, Macbeth, and others) are not rigid, but are shifting, open entities. Calvino leaves us with the sense that there is no limit to the gradient of interpretation, or complication, of life.

IMPORTANT!
4 out of 5
Buy this book: The Castle of Crossed Destinies

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