Numbers In The Dark And Other Stories (1996) - Plot & Excerpts
One of the most interesting parts of this collection of short stories, for me, is the chronological organization, which allows us to observe the development of Calvino as a short story writer from the earliest included stories (which start when he was about 20) to the ones written during his 50s and 60s. His earlier stories are brief fables, each spun around a single idea. The first story, "The Man Who Shouted Teresa," for example, explores community through the simple act of a man standing in the street shouting "Teresa" over and over again. In "A General in the Library," a military task force is sent into a library to purge it of all inappropriate works and, through the actions of the wily old librarian, end up on a completely different mission (is it possible to read a short story about libraries without thinking of Borges?).As Calvino grows older, his stories grow a little longer on average. Most importantly, though, they grow denser. Some of my favorite stories are in the second half of the book, but they are surrounded by too many with which I failed to connect, and while I was able to forgive that when reading what I knew was the work of a young man, I found myself less patient with the older Calvino. One highlight is "World Memory," in which the curator of the world's knowledge instructs his successor in the lesser known aspects of his new duties, with a twist. "The Memoirs of Casanova" (which according to a note from Calvino that is included in the Editor's Note at the end of the book, was based on paintings and was intended to be a sort of Invisible Cities with people, rather than cities) features the legendary Casanova discussing several of his loves, each of whom challenges and exposes him in unexpected ways. Less successful, for me, were three imagined dialogues -- with Neanderthal Man, Montezuma, and Henry Ford. In several of the stories toward the end of the collection, any sense of plot is largely discarded in favor of philosophical musings. I am fairly sure I would have enjoyed these stories at a different time in my life, but at this particular time I failed to connect with them.
I agree with other reviewers that it shouldn't be the first Calvino book you read, but readers who are already Calvino fans will find plenty of gems in this collection. There are 37 widely varied stories, vignettes, fables, imagined interviews, and fantasies, arranged chronologically and representing work from 1943 to 1985. Of the earlier work, I most enjoyed the fables such as "The Black Sheep," in which a smoothly-running village of thieves is thrown into chaos when an honest man moves in. Standouts for me in the second half include "World Memory," about a company tasked with documenting, well, everything, and "The Burning of Abominable House," in which the narrator tries to reconstruct the events leading to a burned house containing four bodies and a list of "abominable deeds" committed there.At its best, Calvino's writing engages me on two levels simultaneously: the front of my brain relishes the precise language and the cultural commentary, while another part of the writing bypasses the reasonable part of my mind and goes straight to the brain stem, connecting with something more primal and ancient. These are the stories I dog-eared to read again in the future: Conscience The Black Sheep Wind in a City The Lost Regiment A General in the Library A Beautiful March Day World Memory The Burning of Abominable House Henry Ford
What do You think about Numbers In The Dark And Other Stories (1996)?
"And Ida is one of those girls who run into you and immediately start telling you their life stories and what they think about things, even though they hardly know you: girls with no secrets, except for things that are secrets to them too; and even for those secrets they'll find words, everyday words that sprout effortlessly, as if their thoughts budded ready-clothed in a tissue of words.""Only in a superficial sense can lies be said to exclude the truth; you will be aware that in many cases lies - the patient's lies to the psychoanalyst, for example - are just as revealing as the truth, if not more so; and the same will be true for those who eventually interpret our message...the lie is the real information we have to pass on.""She's a nice girl, Mariamirella; by nice I mean she understands the difficult things I say and immediately makes them easy. I'd like to give her a kiss, but then I think that if I kissed her I'd think of kissing the thought of her and she'd think of being kissed by the thought of me, so I do nothing about it."
—Chris
Many years ago, my cousin gave me an Italo Calvino book. I started to read it then, but I never finished. I can't recall the reason. When I picked up NUMBERS IN THE DARK, I was enchanted by the first story (my favorite of all the selections). It was so clever and absurd. But there were only a few throughout the entire book that were really good. Most were decently entertaining or clever and engaging, and some were downright tedious. I believe that with this last set, the cleverness is exhausted in the exposition, and once I realized the goal of the story, I was bored of it. I forced myself to continue at one point, determined to make it through the entire collection, in hopes that there would be more like the first. There were a couple more toward the end, fortunately. But the dry, almost textbook language (which I'm not sure if due to the translation or not) was a deterrent for me on most stories/pieces.
—Shannon
I first read a story by Italo Calvino in some literary magazine in English class in high school. I thought the story was so cool. It was about this town where everyone was a thief and at night all of the citizens would go out and rob from each other's houses. The town was peaceful and everyone was on equal footing. Than some honest dude moved to town and screwed everything up. Over the years I have searched for it in libraries, book stores and on the internet, but could never find it. Finally, thanks to the fellas in Mountain View I was able to recently find that it was in this short story collection of Calvino's. Some of the stories in this book I really liked and would give a 4/5, but others I would probably give a 2/3. I liked the stories in the first half of the book the best. Based only on reading a few of his other books, I think this collection gives a good feel for what some of his other works are like.
—Josh
