The Calvino Hot One Hundred
One hundred writers praised or featured in the writings of Italo Calvino.
1. Ludovico Ariosto
1474-1535
"Evidence of my prediliction [for Ariosto] is so obvious that the reader will find it unaided." Why Read the Classics? p69. Orlando Furioso formed part of the raw material for The Castle of Crossed Destinies. See 'The Structure of the Orlando Furioso' and 'Brief Anthology of Octaves from Ariosto' in Why Read the Classics?
2. Paul Valéry
1871-1945
"A writer I never tire of reading." (Six Memos p118) His Monsieur Teste is cited as an example of the richness of short forms of literature. Valéry is the "poet of impassive rigour of mind". (Six Memos p50, 65) One of the poets writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70)
3. Jorge Luis Borges
1899-1986
"I love his work because every one of his pieces contains a model of the universe…; because they are texts contained in only a few pages, with an exemplary economy of expression; because his stories often take the outer form of some genre from popular fiction" (Six Memos p119). Borges "achieves his approaches to the infinite without the least congestion, in the most crystalline, sober, and airy style… Borges has created a literature raised to the second power and, at the same time, a literature that is like the extraction of the square root of itself" (Six Memos p51). One of those writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70). See 'Jorge Luis Borges' in Why Read the Classics?
4. Lucretius
c99-55 BCE
"The De Rerum Natura of Lucretius is the first great work of poetry in which knowledge of the world tends to dissolve the solidity of the world, leading to a perception of all that is infinitely minute, light, and mobile." (Six Memos p8)
5. Joseph Conrad
1857-1924
"On one bookshelf of my ideal library Conrad's place is next to the aery Stevenson…and yet on more than one occasion I have been tempted to move him onto another shelf, one less accessible for me, the one containing analytical, psychological novelists, the James and Prousts… or maybe even alongside those who are more or less aesthetes maudits, like Poe…Instead I have always kept him close at hand, alongside Stendhal, who is so unlike him, and Nievo, who has nothing in common with him at all" ('Conrad's Captains' in Why Read the Classics? p174). Calvino wrote a thesis on Conrad in 1947.
6. Cyrano de Bergerac
1619-55
"An extraordinary writer, Cyrano, and one who deserves to be better known, not only as the first true forerunner of science fiction but for his intellectual and poetic qualities… Cyrano is the first poet of atomism in modern literature" (Six Memos p20). See 'Cyrano on the Moon' in Why Read the Classics?
7. Francis Ponge
1899-1988
"Ponge for me is a peerless master because the brief texts of Le parti pris des choses and his other books on similar lines, speaking of a shrimp or a pebble or a piece of soap, give us the best example of a battle to force language to become the language of things, starting from things and returning to us changed, with all the humanity we have invested in things… I believe that he may be the Lucretius of our time." (Six Memos p76) "One of the great sages of our times, one of the few fundamental authors to whom we should turn so as not to continue going round in circles." See 'Francis Ponge' in Why Read the Classics?
8. Galileo Galilei
1564-1642
See 'The Book of Nature in Galileo' in Why Read the Classics? Calvino was quoted as saying that Galileo is "the greatest Italian writer" in 'Two Interviews on Science and Literature', The Literature Machine p31. Calvino explained he meant "prose writer… in which case the question boils down to Machiavelli or Galileo."
9. Voltaire
1694-1778
"Another of my models [for Our Ancestors] was the conte philosophique, chiefly Voltaire's Candide. What drew me to it also was its precision, lightness and rhythm and my own liking for the eighteenth century." (Our Ancestors p viii) See 'Candide, or, Concerning Narrative Rapidity' in Why Read the Classics?
10. Robert Louis Stevenson
1850-94
"To him, writing meant translating an invisible text containing the quintessential fascination of all adventures, all mysteries, all conflicts of will and passion scattered throughout the books of hundreds of writers; it meant translating them into his own precise and almost impalpable prose, into his rhythm which was like that of dance-steps at once impetuous and controlled." (Our Ancestors p viii) See 'Robert Louis Stevenson, The Pavilion on the Links' in Why Read the Classics?
11. Cesare Pavese
1908-50
An early friend and supporter of Calvino, see for example A Hermit In Paris p8. In 1956 he said "Pavese remains the most important, most complex and the densest Italian writer of our time." (A Hermit In Paris p10). See also 'Pavese and Human Sacrifice' in Why Read the Classics?
12. Stendhal
1783-1842
See 'Knowledge as Dust Cloud in Stendhal' and 'Guide for New Readers of Stendhal's Charterhouse' in Why Read the Classics? "If I open The Charterhouse again even today, as on every occasion I have reread the book in different periods and throughout all the changes in tastes and expectations, what I find is that the charge of its music, that Allegro Con Brio, immediately recaptures me." p132
13. Ovid
43BCE-18CE
"It is in following the continuity of the passage from one form to another that Ovid displays his incomparable gifts." (Six Memos p10) See 'Ovid and Universal Contiguity' in Why Read the Classics?
14. William Shakespeare
1564-1616
"Hamlet… constitutes a short circuit, or a whirlpool that sucks in all the various levels of reality." In the last act of Antony and Cleopatra "On the stage of the Globe theatre a piping boy dressed as Cleopatra represents the real, majestic Queen Cleopatra in the act of imagining herself being represented by a boy dressed up as Cleopatra." ('Levels of Reality in Literature' in The Literature Machine). "I confess that I am tempted to construct my own Shakespeare, a Lucretian atomist, but I realise that his would be arbitrary." (Six Memos p20). Admiration for Mercutio, a figure of lightness: "I would also like Mercutio's dancing gait to come along with us across the threshold of the new millennium." (Six Memos p18). On Mercutio, see also A Hermit In Paris p234.
15. Gustave Flaubert
1821-80
"Flaubert should be recognized as the writer who started the dissolution of literary forms that led to the programs of the various avant gardes." 'The Novel as Spectacle' in The Literature Machine. His Bouvard and Pécuchet is "the most encyclopedic book ever written." Madame Bovary is used in 'Levels of Reality in Literature' in The Literature Machine. See also 'Gustave Flaubert, Trois Contes' in Why Read the Classics?
16. Vladimir Nabokov
1899-1977
"If I had to say who is the living author I like best, and who has most ifluenced me in some way, I would say it is Vladimir Nabokov: a great Russian writer and a great writer in English… He truly is a genius, one of the greatest writers of the century." A Hermit In Paris p238
17. Pliny the Elder
23-79
"For sheer pleasure of reading, I would advise anyone taking up Pliny the Elder's Natural History to focus mainly on three books…" [Books 2, 7 and 8]. See 'The Sky, The Man, The Elephant' in Why Read the Classics?
18. Roland Barthes
1915-80
In his mind "the demon of exactitude lived side by side with the demon of sensitivity" (Six Memos p65). See 'In Memory of Roland Barthes' in The Literature Machine.
19. Giacomo Leopardi
1798-1837
"The miraculous thing about his poetry is that he simply takes the weight out of language, to the point that it resembles moonlight." (Six Memos p24). Leopardi's Operette Morali (Essays and Dialogues) are "unparalleled in other literatures." (Six Memos p49). "The poet of vagueness can only be the poet of exactitude"; Leopardi's "most famous and beautiful" lyric is 'L'Infinito'(Six Memos p60-63).
20. Franz Kafka
1883-1924
Amerika is "another decisive book in my life, and one which I have always considered 'The Novel' par excellence in world literature in the twentieth century and perhaps not only in that century." A Hermit In Paris p241
21. Alexandre Dumas
1802-70
The Count of Monte Cristo is the basis for a story in Time and the Hunter.
22. Ippolito Nievo
1831-61
"A nineteenth century novelist who died young and deserves to be better known outside Italy"; cited as a source for The Non-Existent Knight (Our Ancestors p viii)
23. Edgar Allan Poe
1809-49
"After Hoffmann, the author who has had the greatest influence on the European fantastic genre." Introduction to Fantastic Tales. "He is a writer who knows how to do everything, in terms of the short story." A Hermit In Paris p236.
24. Marco Polo
1254-1324
Obviously a source for Invisible Cities.
25. Carlo Emilio Gadda
1893-1973
"Amongst all the important and brilliant authors about whom we have spoken in these days, perhaps only Gadda deserves the name of a great writer." See 'The World is an Artichoke' and 'Carol Emilio Gadda, the Pasticciaccio' in Why Read the Classics? That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana is cited as an example of "the contemporary novel as encyclopedia". (Six Memos p105)
26. Nicolo Machiavelli
1469-1527
"I also love Machiavelli very much…" 'Two Interviews on Science and Literature', The Literature Machine p32
27. Ernest Hemingway
1899-1961
"There was a time when for me - and for many others who were more or less my contemporaries - Hemingway was a god." See 'Hemingway and Ourselves' in Why Read the Classics?
28. Raymond Queneau
1903-76
"In our century Queneau is a unique example of a wise and intelligent writer, who always goes against the grain of the dominant tendencies of his age and of French culture in particular." See 'The Philosophy of Raymond Queneau' in Why Read the Classics?
29. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712-78
"All of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thoughts and actions are dear to me, but they all arouse in me an irrepressible urge to contradict, criticise and argue with him." Why Read The Classics? p7
30. Leo Tolstoy
1828-1910
War and Peace is alluded to in The Baron in the Trees. See 'Leo Tolstoy, Two Hussars' in Why Read the Classics?
31. Honoré de Balzac
1788-1850
Prophetic, because he was "at a nodal point in the history of literature." Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu is a "parable of literature" as well as modern art. It is "about the unbridgeable gulf between linguistic expression and sense experience, and the elusiveness of the visual imagination." (Six Memos p96). See also 'The City as Novel in Balzac' in Why Read the Classics?
32. Charles Dickens
1812-70
See 'Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend' in Why Read the Classics? "As far as I am concerned, Our Mutual Friend is an unqualified masterpiece, both in its plot and the way it is written." p149
33. Joseph von Eichendorff
1788-1857
Cited as a source for Our Ancestors (p viii). Eichendorff's Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing is one of his favourite works of German Romanticism - see Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
34. Eugenio Montale
1896-1981
In his 'Piccolo Testamento' "we also find the subtlest of elements - they could stand as symbols of his poetry: mother-of-pearl trace of a snail / or mica of crushed glass." (Six Memos p6) His 'L'anguilla' "sums up the achievement" of Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams. (Six Memos p75). See 'Eugenio Montale, 'Forse un mattino andando'' and 'Montale's Cliff' in Why Read the Classics?
35. Guido Cavalcanti
c1250-1300
"The poet of lightness. The dramatis personae of his poems are not so much human beings as sighs, rays of light, optical images, and above all those nonmaterial impulses and messages he called 'spirits'." (Six Memos p12)
36. Achim von Arnim
1781-1831
Cited as a source for Our Ancestors (p viii). Calvino mentions Arnim's symbol of the street of the Jews (from Die Majoratshermann) and his short novel Isobel in Egypt in the Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
37. Georges Perec
1936-82
"In my view [Life: A User's Manual] is the last real 'event' in the history of the novel so far." (Six Memos p121)
38. Giovanni Boccaccio
1313-75
In Decameron VI.9 he describes Guido Cavalcanti leaping over a tomb. "Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose that one: the sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world." (Six Memos p12)
39. Adelbert von Chamisso
1781-1838
"Brings to his crystalline German prose a lightness typical of the French eighteenth century" - Introduction to Fantastic Tales. Cited as a source for Our Ancestors (p viii)
40. Daniel Defoe
1660-1731
"Robinson Crusoe is without a doubt a book to be reread line by line, and we will continue to make new discoveries" - 'Robinson Crusoe, Journal of Mercantile Virtues' in Why Read the Classics?
41. Marcel Proust
1871-1922
The details of technology in Proust are "not just part of the 'colour of the times,' but part of the work's very form, of its inner logic, of the author's anxiety to plumb the multiplicity of the writable within the briefness of life that consumes it." (Six Memos p112)
42. Samuel Beckett
1906-89
He "has obtained the most extraordinary results by reducing visual and linguistic elements to a minimum, as if in a world after the end of the world." (Six Memos p95)
43. Jan Potocki
1761-1815
"All the ingredients (hidden or manifest) of visionary Romanticism appear in this extraordinary book", Manuscript Found in Saragossa. (Fantastic Tales p3).
44. Denis Diderot
1713-84
"Diderot's status among the founding fathers of contemporary literature is continually rising." See 'Denis Diderot, Jacques le Fataliste' in Why Read the Classics?
45. Dante Alighieri
1265-1321
In Dante everything acquires consistency and stability: the weight of things is precisely established… Dante gives solidity even to the most abstract intellectual speculation, whereas Cavalcanti dissolves the concreteness of tangible experience…" (Six Memos p16)
46. Charles Fourier
1772-1837
"Fourier was distinguished by the particular quality of his visionary imagination even in his own times." See essays on Fourier in The Literature Machine.
47. Nikolai Gogol
1809-52
"In Russian literature Hoffmann's influence produces such miraculous fruit as Gogol's Saint Petersburg Tales, but we should not that even before any European inspiration, Gogol had written extraordinary tales about witchcraft in his two collections of stories set in the Ukrainian countryside." Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
48. Nathaniel Hawthorne
1804-64
He "achieved extraordinary intensity in the fantastic tale… Many of his tales are masterpieces." Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
49. E.T.A. Hoffmann
1776-1822
"One name stands out above all the others: E.T.A. Hoffmann' Introduction to Fantastic Tales. Cited as a source for Our Ancestors (p viii)
50. Homer
See 'The Odysseys within The Odyssey' in Why Read the Classics? and 'Levels of Reality in Literature' in The Literature Machine.
51. Henry James
1843-1916
Cited as an example of lightness where "subtle and imperceptible elements are at work" in a narration (Six Memos p17). See 'Henry James, Daisy Miller' in Why Read the Classics?
52. Mark Twain
1835-1910
"A writer I certainly feel close to" (A Hermit In Paris p236). See 'Mark Twain, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg' in Why Read the Classics?
53. Miguel de Cervantes
1547-1616
See discussion of Don Quixote in 'Levels of Reality in Literature' in The Literature Machine.
54. Thomas Mann
1875-1955
"I am more and more impressed by the richness of his subject matter" (A Hermit In Paris p12). "It is not too much to say that the small, enclosed world of an alpine sanatorium is the starting point for all the threads that were destined to be followed by the maîtres à penser of the century…" Six Memos p116.
55. Alfred Jarry
1873-1907
L'amour absolu is an "inventive tour de force" that can be read in three different ways. Six Memos p117.
56. Laurence Sterne
1713-68
"Sterne's great invention was the novel that is completely composed of digressions, an example followed by Diderot." (Six Memos p46)
57. Alessandro Manzoni
1785-1873
See 'Manzoni's The Betrothed: The Novel of Ratios of Power.' in The Literature Machine
58. Hans Christian Andersen
1805-75
"One of the great nineteenth century authors of marvellous tales". (Fantastic Tales p315).
59. Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
1808-1889
Tells the story of Charlemagne which enchants Calvino for its quickness. (Six Memos p31)
60. Robert Musil
1880-1942
The passages in The Man Without Qualities that discuss the "poles between which the philosophical and ironic thoughts of the character Ulrich oscillate" cited in Six Memos p64.
61. Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519
"Offers a significant example of the battle with language to capture something that evaded his powers of expression." Six Memos p77.
62. Carlo Levi
1902-75
"I have a particular predilection for and indeed friendship with Carol Levi." A Hermit In Paris p11
63. Nicolai Leskov
1831-95
"An author of the first rank." Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
64. Witold Gombrowitz
1904-69
"Torn between a tightrope-walking levity (as in the wonderful duel between a Synthetist and an Analyst) and the all-devouring concentration of Eros." 'Philosophy and Literature' in The Literature Machine
65. Stephane Mallarmé
1842-98
"We could trace a history in world literature starting with Mallarmé" for the 'geometrical' (Six Memos p69).
66. Bruno Schultz
1892-1942
"Starting with family memories, he achieves a visionary transfiguration of well-nigh inexhaustible wealth of imagination." 'Definitions of Territories: Fantasy' in The Literature Machine
67. Marianne Moore
1887-1972
See 'The Bestiary of Marianne Moore' in The Literature Machine. Each of the poems in her "bestiary" is "a moral fable." (Six Memos p75)
68. Hans Magnus Enzensberger
1929-
"The philosophical writer in the eighteenth-century manner sees his most flourishing reincarnations today in Germany, as poet (Enzensberger), dramatist (Peter Weiss with his Marat/Sade), or novelist (Günther Grass)" - 'Philosophy and Literature' in The Literature Machine. Enzensberger is also citred in 'Cybernetics and Ghosts' (The Literature Machine).
69. Alberto Moravia
1907-90
"The only writer in Italy who is an author in a way that I would call 'institutional': that is, he produces at regular intervals works which each time chart the moral definitions of our times." A Hermit In Paris p10.
70. Nezami
c1141-1204
See 'Nezami's Seven Princesses' in Why Read the Classics?: "We now have the good fortune to be able to add to our library of masterpieces of world literature a work that is both of some substance and highly enjoyable."
71. Henri Michaux
1899-1984
In Michaux's Plume Calvino admires the "mysterious and hallucinatory humour". (Six Memos p50)
72. Giorgio Manganelli
1922-90
"Certainly one of the most notable Italian writers of recent years." A Hermit In Paris p236. 73. Massimo Bontempelli 1878-1960 One of those writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70)
74. Thomas De Quincey
1785-1859
In "one of the finest essays in English literature", 'The English Mail Coach', his account of speed has not been bettered (Six Memos p40)
75. Prosper Merimée
1803-70
"As for Merimée and his Mediterranean stories (and also his Nordic stories: the suggestive Lithuania of Lokis), with his skill at capturing light and soul of a country in an image that instantly becomes an emblem, he opens the fantastic genre to a new dimension exoticism." Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
76. Gérard de Nerval
1808-55
Creater of "a new fantastic genre: the dream tale (Sylvie, Aurélia)" Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
77. Erasmus
c1467-1536
Commented "in some memorable pages" on the graphic trademark devised by Aldus Manutius to symbolise the motto 'Festina lente" ('hurry, slowly'), a motto Calvino took as his own.
78. Felisberto Hernandez
1902-64
"He has a few things in common with Hoffmann, but in fact he is like no one else." 'Definitions of Territories: Fantasy' in The Literature Machine
79. Pier Paolo Pasolini
1922-75
"He has written a novel about which I feel many reservations as regards its 'poetics', but the more one thinks about it the more you feel it is something which is well-finished and which will last." A Hermit In Paris p12
80. Boris Pasternak
1890-1960
See 'Pasternak and the Revolution' in Why Read the Classics?
81. Saul Bellow
1915-
"Sometimes I look with envy at those writers who know how to instantly catch something of contemporary life in their novels, who have a chatty and ironic style, like Saul Bellow." A Hermit In Paris p237
82. Arno Schmidt
1914-79
"Queneau, Borges, Arno Schmidt - all have different relations to with different philosophies, and use these to nourish vastly diverse visionary and linguistic worlds." 'Philosophy and Literature' in The Literature Machine
83 Giammaria Ortes
1713-90
See 'Giammaria Ortes' in Why Read the Classics?
84. William Carlos Williams
1883-1963
Exactitude: he "describes the leaves of the cyclamen so minutely that we can visualise the flower poised above the leaves he has drawn for us, thereby giving the poem the delicacy of the plant." (Six Memos p75)
85. Ramón Gómez de la Serna
1888-1963
One of those writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70)
86. Gottfried Benn
1886-1956
One of those writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70)
87. Fernando Pessoa
1888-1935
One of those writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70)
88. Wallace Stevens
1879-1955
One of those writing under "the emblem of the crystal" (Six Memos p70)
89. H.G. Wells
1866-1946
"Wells's genius is not limited to the formulation of marvellous hypotheses and terrors of the future… his extraordinary tales are always based on a discovery made by the intelligence that can be very simple." Introduction to Fantastic Tales.
90. Michel Leiris
1901-90
The "explorations of himself and his own language" are praised. Six Memos p50.
91. Théophile Gautier
1811-72
"Among his numerous fantastic stories, Le morte amoureuse is the most famous and perfect." (Fantastic Tales p227).
92. Emily Dickinson
1830-86
"A lightening of language whereby meaning is conveyed through a verbal texture that seems weightless… 'A sepal, petal and a thorn / Upon a common summer's morn- / A flask of Dew - A Bee or two- / A Breeze - a caper in the trees- / And I'm a Rose!' (Six Memos p17)
93. Edwin Abbott
1838-1926
Flatland's "fantageometry" illustrates the possibilities of literary fantasy in 'Definitions of Territories: Fantasy' in The Literature Machine
94. Milan Kundera
1929-
"It is hard for a novelist to give examples of his idea of lightness from the events of everyday life, without making them the unattainable object of an endless quête. This is what Milan Kundera has done with great clarity and immediacy." Six Memos p7.
95. Jules Verne
1828-1905
"The novels of Jules Verne I like most are The Black Indies and Journey to the Centre of the Earth." A Hermit In Paris p170
96. Gerolamo Cardano
1501-76
See 'Gerolamo Cardano' in Why Read the Classics?
97. Xenophon
c430-355 BCE
See 'Xenophon's Anabasis' in Why Read the Classics?
98. Ivan Turgenev
1818-83
On Turgenev's The Dream see Fantastic Tales p347.
99. John Barth
1930-
"A writer who began with a very fine novel, The End of the Road." A Hermit In Paris p238
100. Michel Tournier
1924-
Vendredi is cited as an example of how to treat the eroticization of culture in 'Philosophy and Literature' in The Literature Machine
Compiled: April 2004