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Author
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Comment
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/24/03 6:48 am)
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Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales
I've been reading Italo Calvino's collection of Italian Folktales on my break and I confess I'm disappointed.... Overall these stories with their elaborate longwinded plot lines seem similar to the stories you get in Italian opera or the Magic Flute for that matter. Tricks, coincidence etc suggest a capricious, chaotic, unjust universe. But with good acting, music and a lot of humour, these stories could be funny on stage. In Calvino's dead pan style though, they seem bald, bleak and downright cruel.
So here's my question then... How much do you think they are a reflection of the Italian soul/world view or whatever, and how much do they show Calvino's personal spin on things? What a writer/editor selects for a collection of stories might say more about him than anything.
Anyway I'd be interested in views on this as I was looking forward to reading these stories and they didn't do it for me.
Alison :\
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Mary
Unregistered User
(7/24/03 7:13 am)
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compared to. . . .
I recently re-read Italian Folktales. Having just re-read Russian
Folktales, I didn't find it particularly capricious or cruel; if
anything, somewhat less than the Russian ones.
Which fairy tales are you comparing it to?
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Midori
Unregistered User
(7/24/03 11:54 am)
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Calvino
Oh my, I love them--I love them all. I am working on a novel right now that is an expansion of "Princesses Wed To Passers-by". There is of course quite a range within the stories--and I think that is a result of Calvino selecting stories from a wide variety of sources. Some of those sources would have been early literary versions perhaps "100 Old Tales" from 1280's, or Franco Sacchetti's "300 Tales" from 1390's and many others--prior to Basile's "Pentamaron." The old stories are rich, complex, full of twists and turns--no doubt popularlized versions of even older Roman and Etruscan mythologies. The "Arcadia" tales--folk versions (comingling a confused tapestry of ancient Roman and Etruscan with village folk motifs) became the popular tales that provided the under pinnings for many of the commedia dell'arte improvised plays--and in turn some of the plots of Shakespeare's Italianate plays. Disguise, deception, illusion, ocean voyages, pirates, disowned sons, women abandoned, fauns and shipwrecks. Oh, and curses.
Italy is so abundant in early (and I do mean early!) folk tale collections as well as a remarkably literate society that read them, told them and rewrote them and performed them. And of course it makes a difference whether one is in the north--where the tales are also twinged with Celtic undertones, or the South--especially Sicily--where they have North African overtones. I feel Calvion did an excellent job of selecting tales across the culturally diverse map of Italy.
If I have any disappointment in Calvino, it's that he didn't include some of the most hilarious and raunchiest of the popular tales collected in the earliest Renassaince collections--and he cleaned up the language a bit (oh, those long strings of expletatives and adjectives!).
If you want to make a quick comparison--take a look at a wonderful collection "Italian Renaissance Tales," selected and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr. It's a pretty nice paperback and her notes are excellent.
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(7/24/03 12:06 pm)
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Calvino's notes and introduction
Alison,
Have you read Calvino's introduction and notes? Those give a good perspective on his choices.
My impression was that he set out to be the Italian Grimm -- ie to include at least one version of almost all the tales collected by folklorists in the 1800s. So it wasn't a matter of his personal choice or taste (other than in editing and completing some of the stories, which he notes).
Better check this, my memory is foggy on it.
R.
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duglis
Registered User
(7/25/03 2:42 am)
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I'm narrow minded :)
I didn't like this collection either.
I seem to like only the below fairy/folktales
English Tales
French Salon Tales (Perrault to d'Aulnoy)
Grimms
Norweigan Tales
Russian Tales
that seems to be about it for me ! :(
don't much like Italian tales, Japanese, Chinese, African,
African American, etc etc etc
Doug
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Ron McCutchan
Unregistered User
(7/25/03 1:58 pm)
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Italian novellae
My comp lit professor at U of IL Janet Smarr (she's now out on the West Coast, I think) did an edition of Italian novellae, some of which I think Calvino also used, though closer to folk tales and the stuff of the DECAMERON/CANTERBURY TALES than fairy tale proper. And yes, they can run to the violent side (That Restoration tragedy and bloodbath,THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, was adapted from an Italian novella).
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(7/25/03 11:50 pm)
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space
Having done a book in the same folktale series, I know how seriously they take their space limitations. I had to cut down from 175 stories to about 75.
However, the Calvino was SO popular and a bestseller, it surprised me then that they didn't take his outtakes and make a second volume.
Jane
PS I love this collection, and his intro--where he talks about the hundreds of gold dung donkey variants--was priceless.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/26/03 10:11 am)
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I need more persuading.....
I'm most interested in your various responses - particularly Midori - though I'm still in need of some convincing on this great adulation of Calvino's collection.
Yes Rosemary, I did indeed read Calvino's intro explaining his criteria for selection. Very logical it was to pick a story to represent each region. But I'm not wholly convinced. A personal selection like this must involve more than logic and must say something about Calvino himself.
My guess is that the stories were meant to be told/acted with a good deal of wit and humour, but that is what is lacking in Calvino's rendition. However there are people who know a good deal more about this than I do. And I am open to persuasion.... though my gut reaction is the same as Doug's. I'd go with your preferences too Doug!
Very many thanks to you all for the references which I will follow up.
And Hi to Jane in Scotland from Fife!
Alison
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(7/26/03 11:27 am)
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Fife
Alison--I am not clear--are YOU in Fife? Because I am. St Andrews. In the book.
Jane
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/27/03 1:38 am)
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Fife
Yes Jane, I live in Fife! In the countryside near Loch Leven. Are you in Dunino? I'm pretty sure you'll be going to the Book Festival then...
Hope you're enjoying yourself.
All the best
Alison
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MikeTransreal
Registered User
(7/27/03 1:08 pm)
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Calvino as a writer
It's a long time since I read the Folk Tales volume, but I'm a big fan of his other work. IMHO, he was one of the best post-war European writers...
His flatter prose, I've found, has usually been translated by someone other than William Weaver, the predominant literary Italian/English translator. I don't recall if he was involved with translating the Folk Tales, but, if not, this may be partially responsible for some people's reactions to them.
And, btw, an autobiography of sorts is due out soon - should be interesting!
Edited to add: Sorry, should have posted this as Meurglys!
Edited by: MikeTransreal at: 7/28/03 12:42 am
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(7/27/03 7:02 pm)
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Sturgeon's Law?
Have you compared Calvino's collection with other collections that try to be equally exhaustive? Some Grimm that puts in all the obscure and bawdy stories, Pantheon's Afanasev?
Might it be that the pretty stories in Calvino don't stand out as much as the pretty ones we learned through Perrault? That might have to do with Calvino's style, or the Italian style. Or with the cultural details. Somehow the heroine eating a pizza blows me right out of the fairy tale mood.
Is it possible that what we're used to is a style, a rhythm maybe, that Perrault and Lang added? And/or that they cleaned up the donkeys a bit?
R.
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duglis
Registered User
(7/28/03 1:09 am)
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I agree
I agree with you Rosemary...
I believe I am used to a certain style that is present
in Perrault, Lang, Grimm, Abjornsen and Moe, and
Afansev.
This is the reason on the whole why i can't get into
fairy/folktales from other places in the world IN GENERAL.
Of course THE BEST of the rest of the world's fairytales
are great...but i can't really read the old random Italian
Fairytale and enjoy it ..as i can with the above collectors
i mentioned.
Douglas
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/28/03 1:19 am)
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Yes....style
Yes, now this is interesting. I'm pretty sure it is the style I'm reacting to. I'm not too concerned with whether the donkeys etc are clean or filthy or whether the tales are violent or cruel, but a certain rhythm, a certain musical flow seems necessary.... It's the flatness, baldness of it I can't take. I'll have to think more about this now....
Alison
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/28/03 6:58 am)
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A Modernist stamp?
On reflection, maybe I should rephrase the question. Do you think Calvino is imposing a modernist stamp on this collection by a selective choice of content, by a deliberate absence of style and with flat dead pan humour? And is he doing so in order to suggest a chaotic universe in which we are all thrown higgledy piggledy, without rhyme or reason? Or is this just a collection of Italian folk tales which anyone could have put together with some research?
Alison
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Jess
Unregistered User
(7/28/03 7:06 am)
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Translation?
Alison,
I am currently reading Martin's translation. I have found several significant translation errors which distract from the tales. Still, I enjoy the stories themselves and often recognize their Grimm counterparts. When comparing the two, I do not think the Italian particularly flat. I do prefer Zipes's beautiful use of language in the Grimm's however.
There are tales which seem very Italian in character. These are mostly humorous tales. They reflect the subtle, wry Italian humor, a kind of self-deprecating humor. Perhaps you have not been exposed to it before, do not recognize it as such, and the humor is lost on you. I does not jump from the page as being funny. Try rereading some of the tales you "just don't get" with this in mind.
Remember, you don't have to like every fairy tale though.
Jess
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(7/28/03 10:43 pm)
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Re: Translation?
For another angle on the Italian folklore side of things, you might consider reading Thomas Crane's earlier work, Italian Popular Tales:
www.amazon.com/exec/obido...lalufairyt
Some of his tales are available on SurLaLune.
There is also Il Pentamerone by Giambattista Basile. Benedetto Croce's translation is best but hard to find. Nancy Canepa is supposedly working on a new one. An earlier translation, albeit unreliable, is available on SurLaLune at:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...index.html
Heidi
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/29/03 1:16 am)
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Thanks for your thoughts
Thanks Jess and Heidi for your comments. Yes, I will follow up your references. Do you think Calvino is just a typical Italian then, Jess? With the same sense of humour? It's very interesting to get different slants on this.
Any views on the absence of style?
Alison
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Helen
Registered User
(7/29/03 8:27 am)
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Re: Thanks for your thoughts
Dear Alison:
I find the question of style - what is and what isn't a "fairy tale" for reasons of pacing, language, tone, as opposed to content - inherently fascinating. Elizabeth Wanning Harries actually came out with a great book on almost exactly this topic a few years ago (_Twice Told Tales: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale_). Harries focused more on the fairy tales of the contes de fees - those written by D'aulnoy and co. rather than Perrault - to demonstrate how rigid the Western conception of the fairy tale had become, in her view, thanks largely to the Grimms (her argument is a bit more complicated, but I'm synopsizing). Basically, Harries argued that the popularity of their form - succinct and moralistic - grew to be so prevalent that earlier tales diverging from its structure were buried, despite their contributions to the genre, and new tales dismissed unless they met its standards. The tales of the women writers of the contes de fees, for example, while very literary, have more in common with the Italian folktales of the Calvino collection (Basile and Strapparola being the likely link between the literary style and the folkloric content) in their convoluted plot twists and unexpected details. Unsurprisingly, both are little known compared to the sparer tales of Perrault, or Jacobs. As for the "voice" of the collection ... that's really a tough one. The translator is *so* amazingly influential in setting the tone - for example, Mary mentions the Pantheon edition of Afanasyev's tales. I can't read it, because after having seen the tales in the original, the translations (full of errors, unnecessary changes, and a voice that completely lacks the easy flow of the originals) just get my back up. Not having read the tales in the original language, I kinda like the Calvino for what it is - maybe it's just my having always read fairy tales and modern fantasy side by side (for me, the pizza makes it into the magical realism of the 15th century - maybe I'm just weird). Since my only alternative to reading translations warily appears to be learning the relevant languages, I'm resigning myself to a lengthy process of study ... and using salt not by the grain, but by the bushel when it comes to accepting the dominant translation as the definitive version. Alternative translations all the way ...
Best,
Helen
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Ken McGuire
Unregistered User
(7/29/03 9:03 am)
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Italian folk/fairy tales
I have had a pretty consistent yawn reaction to Calvino's tales. That is especially true when compared to Basile in any of the translations I have managed to find. Right now I'm in the middle of the Facetious Nights by Straparola, and enjoying those stories as well. It seems to me that the fewer hands those old tales went through, the better.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(7/30/03 8:56 am)
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15th century magic realism - nice one!!!
Thanks Helen and Ken, for your very interesting angles on this. I'm still not entirely convinced the difficulty lies in the translation, although I admit I don't have the knowledge to judge. I was looking at Calvino's "Invisible Cities" today and I know, reading that, Calvino cannot be underestimated. I'd just like to understand better what's behind his thinking. Particularly in relation to the "Folktales collection"
Alison
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