Lezioni americane: Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio

Italo Calvino prepared these lectures for the Charles Eliot Norton series at Harvard in 1985, but died before he could deliver them. He proposes six values that he thinks literature should preserve in the next millennium: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency, the last of which he left unwritten. For each, he draws on examples from Ovid, Dante, Boccaccio, Cervantes, Borges, Kafka, and Perec, and also his own work.

The lectures are brief and elegant. They suit writers, readers, and students of literature who want to see how a great author thought about his craft, and anyone interested in the future of books.

Deep and contemplative; a moderate read.

Best for readers like The Deep Diver. Which reader are you?