T Zero

the notion of remembering back to when we were all dry inside and it was wet outside, before we turned ourselves inside out and carried the wet within us in a dry world is enough to recommend this book to any and all - the bit about how birds got in the world is icing on the cake.

To the people who hate this book, I grant you the freedom of your opinion, but I have to say, "You don't get it!" This isn't a narrative in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, Calvino has taken complex scientific principles and turned them into stories. Its true that there is a certain lack of character development, as the main character is a one-dimensional atomic particle (pun intended), but even so, Calvino makes him(it?) come alive in his tales. The true feature and attraction of these stories are the situation and worlds that Calvino creates. All that being said, I read this in the same day that I read Cosmicomics, which is a prior collections of similar stories featuring the same character (and, I think, a better book overall), and the artist's conceit wore a little thin. However, if you can give these books sufficient time and space(pun intended again), they are truly fun and beautiful.

Not surprisingly the two early reviews give it 1 and 5 respectively: a book about which it is impossible to be neutral. Confusing,dense, boring writing there is - but also some amazing mathematic/scietific concepts whch Calvino masterly spins into stories - the logic/illogic (which are probably simultaneously both the same and opposite) outcomes baffle and amaze. The final section was more rewarding (being more time-space maths based) - couldn't get a handle on the evolutionary/biological stuff. I also suspect I want to read more about the text and continually get beneath its skin. Will read bits again and again and again. (Not a tour de force of narrative analysis compared to "if on a winter's night..." and castle of crossed destinies)

Calvino is one of the masters of post-modernism, and his tales fiction highlight one of the most fundamental concerns of the movement: challenging notions of a "reality". t zero reigns as Calvino's finest, most compelling work