My plans to read Italo Calvino during Novellas in November fell apart, as most of my plans do, but this year I had read only two more books of the 1001 that I must read before I die, so here we are with Italo Calvino's first novel, The Path to the Spiders' Nests, leaving me with 118 more on the TBR with a mere 495 more to acquire and read before my eyes give out...

Ha!

Anyway, what an amazing first novel it is. It's nothing like the weird and wonderful experimental fictions for which Calvino is famous: based on Calvino's real-life experience in WW2, it's a coming-of-age story of an orphan called Pin who inadvertently falls in with a group of Italian partisans. Pin is a cobbler's apprentice, but his employer Pietromagro is mostly in gaol for one thing or another, and his sister is preoccupied with making a living as a prostitute, so he grows up neglected, lazy and foul-mouthed. However — as it says in 1001 Books —

...he is worldly enough to use local gossip to his advantage; he is also a child who craves adult attention, but only crudely and imperfectly understands how to capture and retain it. The irony is that the two things Pin utterly fails to comprehend — politics and women — are those that equally mystify most of the other characters. (1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, edited by Peter Boxall, 2006 Edition, Quintet Publishing 2006, p 436.)

Pin is an exasperating child. He hangs around the bar picking up gossip and hurling filthy insults at the drinkers, so it's hard not to read between the lines that those who gave him the risky task that sets the plot in motion, wouldn't have minded too much if he hadn't survived it. They ask him to steal a German sailor's pistol...

The high tension scene where Pin crawls into his sister's room to get the pistol from her client is followed by an abrupt coming down to earth. Back at the bar, the men are quietly discussing the formation of a small partisan unit and they are not interested in Pin's carefully rehearsed theatrics. When he doesn't get the attention he craves, he runs away and hides the pistol.

But, because he's only a foolish boy, he doesn't hide the belt. He struts back into town brandishing it as he rehearses how he's going to impress everybody. The sailor recognises his belt and that brings Pin into the orbit of the Germans and the Fascists.

Yes, the Germans are worse than the municipal guards. With guards, Pin could at least, if nothing else, begin joking, and say, 'If you let me go, I'll arrange for you to go to bed free with my sister.'

But the Germans cannot even understand what he says, and the Fascists are men he has never seen before, men who do not even know who his sister is. (p.55)

His sister and the sailor are both also at the interrogation, and Pin knows that the sailor has made up a story about the pistol to deflect any blame for losing it. Overnight, Pin has been kept awake by threats from Michel the Frenchman, who has promised to kill him if he talks about what he heard in the bar.

Pin could not get off to sleep; he was used to being beaten and that did not frighten him very much, but he was in an agony of doubt about the best line to take up at the interrogation. He would have loved to revenge himself on Michel and the others and tell the Germans straight away that he had given the pistol to the men in the tavern, and also that they had formed a Gap [Gruppo Azione Patrioti. A small unit of partisans]; but to turn into an informer would be another irreparable action, like stealing the pistol; it would mean he would never be stood another drink in the tavern, or be able to sing or listen to dirty stories there. And then he might also involve that man Committee, who was always so glum and miserable, and Pin would have been sorry about that as Committee was the only decent man among the lot. Pin would like Committee to arrive now, all wrapped up in his raincoat, enter the interrogation room and say, 'I told him to take the pistol.' That would be a fine gesture, worthy of Committee, and no harm would come to him for it either, for just as the S.S. were going to lead him off to prison, there would be a shout, like at the cinema, of 'Here come our lads!' and Committee's men would rush in and set them all free. (p.56-7)

This blend of street-smart bravado and naiveté is enough to make a reader weep...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/17/the-path-to-the-spiders-nests-1947-revised-1... ( )

Esta es la historia de Pin, un chiquillo listo y precoz que en la Italia de la guerra y la resistencia corretea por las calles en busca de clientes para su hermana prostituta. Hasta que un día se le complican las cosas de manera irreparable: le roba la pistola a un marinero alemán y, desconfiando de los adultos, la oculta en un lugar misterioso, que él llama los «nidos de araña». Pin no logra escapar de los alemanes, que le prenden, le interrogan infructuosamente y lo envían a la cárcel. De allí conseguirá escapar junto con un resistente comunista conocido como el «Lobo Rojo» y no le quedará más remedio que lanzarse al monte, fascinado entonces por otro extraordinario personaje, Primo, un solitario partisano. Pero el lector, intrigado, no olvidará entretanto que el arma sigue oculta.

Shit! Why do I even bother sometimes?! This ain't no review, it's a vague excuse for a memory. I associate Calvino w/ OuLiPo. I love OuLiPo. I consider myself to be an undiscovered OuLiPoian. Sortof. This is Calvino's novel about Italian resistance to the Fascists during WWII. A subject dear to my politics. Nothing OuLiPo about the writing though. ( )

Hans første roman i nyutgivelse og med nyskrevet forord av forfatteren sjøl. Vi er kanskje på slutten av 2.verdenskrig i Italia i en landsby - med en gategutt, hans prostituerte søster, noen landsbyfigurer, okkupasjonsmakten og motstandsbevegelsen. Hovedpersonene er Pin, en energisk og slagferdig gategutt,

La voce di Fabio Zulli interpreta perfettamente il bimbo raccontato da Calvino, un bimbo che non è poi così diverso da tutti i bimbi che da soli, armati di bastoni, pistole o fucili giocattolo, hanno esplorato il mondo, un mondo inevitabilmente occupato dai grandi, un mondo insozzato dalle loro porcherie.
Che intorno ci sia la guerra o che regni un'altrettanto pericolosa pace, piena di insidie e di pericoli ancora più subdoli e nascosti, o che i nidi di ragno stiano nascosti in riva a un ruscello ligure o sulle sponde boscose del Chisone, non fa poi tutta questa differenza. L'emozione è la stessa come è lo stesso il tentativo di colmare la distanza con un mondo adulto che attrae e respinge allo stesso tempo, come è lo stesso il tentativo di affermare una propria identità, un'identità che scava fossati e che costruisce ponti.