The Watcher and Other Stories (Harbrace Paperbound Library)

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Smog" anticipates a preoccupation with pollution so lunatic that it casts a pall even over the hero's affair with a beautiful woman. The first, The Watcher, is about a member of a political party watching the election polls at an area densely populated with a different political party. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. And so, in his memory, he began to contrast the scene before his eyes with the atmosphere of Italy after the liberation, in those few years whose most vivid recollection now was the way everyone had taken part in political affairs and actions, in the problems of that moment, serious and elemental (these were thoughts of the present: then he had lived as if the atmosphere of those times was natural, as everyone did, enjoying it—after all that had happened—angry at things that were wrong, without ever thinking they could be set right); he remembered how people looked then, all of them seeming equally poor, and interested in universal questions more than in private ones; he remembered the makeshift party offices, . Not only were they written at different points in Calvino's career -- "The Watcher" is from 1963, "Smog" from 1958 and "The Argentine Ant" from 1952, but they don't even get the continuity that a single translator might have been able to provide.

Dust jacket condition: wear at the top and bottom at the spine, also at the top flap crease; creasing and wear at the front cover top - please see photos. Esse é o tipo de livro que me comprova o potencial dos clássicos: com 96 páginas, SÓ 96 páginas, o cara tratou do retorno à democracia numa Itália pós-fascista, dos questionamentos do protagonista que pertence ao Partido Comunista com relação a seu posicionamento político, do relacionamento que ele tem com a companheira, de todos os envolvidos no processo de eleições (de mesários a eleitores). They looked as if, daughter following mother, they had never done anything but prepare for elections.The alien landscapes (it's just mid-century Italy, but to me, it feels like a whole world away, a post-war / Renaissance place all at once).

Like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino dreams perfect dreams for us" (John Updike, New Yorker). In "The Watcher, " a member of the Communist Party is assigned to a polling place in Turin's Hospital for Incurables, where he observes the rejects of humanity and a grotesque parody of the democratic process.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Newly aware of the political implications of his ac tions, he turns his efforts to teaching the journal's readers (if they exist) what he himself has discovered about smog and radiation. In the other two stories, the main characters also must persevere in the face of circumstances they cannot control.

Photo by The original uploader was Varie11 at Italian Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Still, I must say the middle story, "Smog", about a determined nihilist being manipulated and also manipulating public opinion on smog in the big city is amazing. The different neighbors have all adopted different approaches to dealing with the pests, from the neighbors that try to block off the invaders, to the neighbor that creates elaborate machines to destroy them, to the neighbor that just attempts to ignore them. The Watcher is a great reflection on its world, showcasing Calvino's great subtle talent for producing the local and universal almost as one and the same. The title story involves Amerigo, a rather naive young Communist who is employed as a "Watcher" at a hospital; he keeps an eye on the patients to make sure they are all aware enough to vote.Scene with elderly peasant father sharing almonds with his brain-damaged son is a microcosm of the story's quietly moving tone. At times the world’s complexity seemed to Amerigo a superimposition of clearly distinct strata, like the leaves of an artichoke; at other times, it seemed a clump of meanings, a gluey dough.