Library Journal
Calvino died just before he was to deliver these lectures. They focus on "things that only literature can give us,'' on "certain qualities, or peculiarities of literature that are very close to my heart'': lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity. (The final lecture, on consistency, has not been found.) Calvino ranges widely in classical and modern European literature to illustrate his themes, but his reflections are perhaps most revealing as commentaries on his own work, where the search for lightness is "a reaction to the weight of living,'' fantasy occupies a central place, and multiple possibilities are worked out in specific detail. Richard Kuczkowski, Dominican Coll., Blauvelt, N.Y.