Tab Article

Ratings: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Genre: Folklore, Fairy Tales, Italian Literature, Short Stories

Book Review:
''Italian Folktales: Calvino's Magical Treasury of a Nation's Soul''

Italo Calvino's ''Italian Folktales'' is a magnificent treasure trove, a collection of two hundred stories that together form a rich and enchanting portrait of the Italian imagination. Calvino, one of the great writers of the twentieth century, spent years gathering these tales from every region of Italy, selecting and retelling them in his own inspired and sensuous language.

There was no Italian equivalent to the Brothers Grimm until Calvino undertook this monumental task. He traveled the country, immersing himself in the oral traditions of peasants and storytellers, collecting tales that had been passed down through generations. The result is a book that is both a work of scholarship and a labor of love, a celebration of the vitality and diversity of Italian folk culture.

The stories themselves are a delight. They transport the reader into a world of adventurers and tricksters, kings and peasants, saints and sorcerers. There are tales of magic and transformation, of love tested by absence and by sorcery, of the natural world and the supernatural intertwined. Some are funny, some are sad, some are terrifying, but all are infused with a sense of wonder.

Salman Rushdie, in the London Review of Books, praised Calvino's ''power of seeing into the deepest recesses of human minds and bringing their dreams to life.'' This is precisely what Calvino does in these tales. He takes the raw material of folklore and shapes it into art, revealing the universal human concerns that lie at the heart of these ancient stories.

''Italian Folktales'' is a book to be savored, a collection to dip into again and again. It is essential reading for anyone interested in folklore, in Italian culture, or simply in the pleasure of a good story. A true classic.