Good book: The tragicomedy of urban people in 'Marcovaldo'

In Vietnam, writer Italo Calvino is known for his experimental novels, aiming to break literary stereotypes, such as If on a winter night a traveler , Castle of crossed fates ... His works with a fantasy feel are equally famous, typically the trilogy Our Ancestors , including The Cloven Viscount , The Baron of the Tree , The Nonexistent Knight . The spirit of "playing" with the structure of the novel, the deeply ironic tone, as well as the boundless imagination are characteristics of the Italian writer.

Sách hay: Bi hài chuyện người thành thị trong 'Marcovaldo'- Ảnh 1. — The book is suitable for those who want to begin to explore the world of Italo Calvino's stories.

Among the treasure trove of stories that break new ground in both form and content, Marcovaldo or Seasons in the City chooses the path of "neo-realism", a collection of short stories revolving around the character Marcovaldo - a poor worker who always turns to nature despite living in the city. Neo-realism is a movement originating from Italian cinema, later spreading to literature, characterized by stories about the life of the working class to depict the difficulties of post-war Italy.

Not liking to follow the beaten path, the author experimented with "modern fables, skewed towards humor - melancholy on the edge of neo-realism", making the real life stories not have a tragic and miserable appearance but have a humorous color very... Italo Calvino. Therefore, Marcovaldo or Seasons in the City will be a suitable work for those who are just starting to enter the world of stories of the Italian writer.

Desire to integrate with nature

In the work, Italo Calvino cleverly satirizes the illnesses, habits, and somewhat naive dreams of urban people. One of them is the desire to "leave the city and return to the countryside", to return to the wild, unpolluted nature.

The main character Marcovaldo, though poor and with many children, always wants to rise above his dull life by seeking the beauty of nature around him. He is delighted to discover mushrooms growing along the roadside. He takes his children to the suburbs to enjoy the fresh air. He explores the countryside and discovers a mysterious lake full of fish.

At first glance, these joys seem legitimate and poetic, but it turns out that the "nature" Marcovaldo finds is far from imagination: eating poisonous mushrooms causes Marcovaldo's entire family to become ill, the idyllic fields on the edge of town are actually located on the grounds of a sanatorium, and waste from a factory upstream has poisoned the fish in the lake.

In each story, Italo Calvino turns the notion that nature has the ability to “cure” the ills of modern life upside down, exploiting the protagonist’s ignorance to create hilarious situations. In Resting on a Bench , Marcovaldo decides to sleep outdoors in the park to enjoy the night air, but is disturbed by the countless sounds of people, traffic signals, garbage trucks…. And in A Saturday Full of Sun, Sand and Sleep , Marcovaldo is advised by his doctor to soak in the sand to cure his rheumatism, but the only thing he finds is… sand on a barge moored by the river.

Italo Calvino commented that "Marcovaldo's love for nature is the kind of love that can only arise in a city man", a somewhat idealized feeling, beautifying nature, stemming from the dream of escaping from the concrete reality, the desire to find "lost paradise", even though that paradise is just an illusion.

The dark side of industrial society

Besides the unsuccessful adventures in nature, another theme that is also evoked throughout the work is the dark side of consumer society and industrial civilization through the implications of the impact of modern urban life on human psychology, which Calvino suggests in a subtle yet ironic way.

Extreme consumerism is exploited by the author both humorously and frighteningly in the short story Marcovaldo in the Supermarket . Marcovaldo's family initially intended to wander around the supermarket to look at the goods but not to buy anything, but then they got lost in the maze of consumption and could not stop themselves from putting things in the shopping cart.

Regarding fake food, he wrote: " Not a day goes by without a few pages of the newspaper reporting on the frightening discovery of shopping in the market: cheese made from plastic, butter made from tallow candles, the content of arsenic from insecticides in fruits and vegetables is greater than the content of vitamins... ". Wishing to find for his family " food that has not passed through the cunning hands of speculators ", Marcovaldo took a fishing rod and realized that even the fish were contaminated with chemicals.

However, the relationship between urban people and urbanization is not simply black and white, good and bad, because the author also points out that modern life brings new conveniences to Marcovaldo's family: Marcovaldo has more work, can comfortably drive around after work, his family moves from the basement to the attic, and has access to new entertainment.

Therefore, the author's intention is not to blindly criticize, claiming that the countryside - nature is always better than the city, but instead, to encourage readers to have a broader view of the whole picture, just like the character Marcovaldo, who, despite experiencing many failures, was not discouraged but continued his journey to pursue beauty and seek joy in life.

More than half a century has passed since Marcovaldo or The Seasons in the City was published, but the stories in this collection of short stories are not outdated. On the contrary, they further prove the author's timeless appeal and vision. The hustle and bustle of modern urban life makes Italo Calvino's observations and thoughts all the more poignant, and today's readers can more easily sympathize with the desire to escape of a city dweller like Marcovaldo.