Into the War

Name: Into the War
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Italo Calvino
ISBN: 9781501963674

Author: Italo Calvino

Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini

Unabridged: 2 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 02/15/2018

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

"This book deals both with a transition from adolescence into youth and with a move from peace to war: as for very many other people, for the protagonist of this book 'entry into life' and 'entry into war' coincide." - from the Author's Note These three stories, set during the summer of 1940, draw on Italo Calvino's memories of his own adolescence during the Second World War, too young to be forced to fight in Mussolini's army but old enough to be conscripted into the Italian youth brigades. The callow narrator of these tales observes the mounting unease of a city girding itself for war, the looting of an occupied French town, and nighttime revels during a blackout. Appearing here in its first English translation, Into the War is one of Calvino's only works of autobiographical fiction. It offers both a glimpse of this writer's extraordinary life and a distilled dram of his wry, ingenious literary voice.

About Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy, the short story collection Cosmicomics, and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. He received numerous awards for his work, including the Riccione Prize and the Saint-Vincent Prize. Lionized in Britain and the United States, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death, and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carolyn Marie on February 27, 2024

3.5…? I loved the writing and imagery, but something—I don’t know what—was missing…just a bit.......more

Goodreads review by Ben on January 16, 2022

A minor Calvino. Three early autobiographical stories, evoking coming of age at a time of war, mixing the tedium of life in a small provincial town with bizarre moments created by mass hysteria under the Fascist regime. As always, Calvino's vivid, precise prose is a pleasure to read. (Available in E......more

Goodreads review by Quân Khuê on May 19, 2021

I have never read anything by Calvino that I don't like. This one is the same. Great prose as always.......more

Goodreads review by Jim on August 12, 2024

Mussolini's Italy has just declared war, and a young Italo Calvino, while not himself a Fascist, has been dragooned into joining various Fascist youth groups in support of Italy's war effort (such as it was). Into the War consists of three biographical sketches about Calvino's participation in those......more

Goodreads review by Daniella on December 16, 2018

I really enjoyed this short book! I picked up a lot of Calvino's works after reading If On A Winter's Night a Traveller because his style interested me and I found the way he wrote to be beautiful and unique. Into the War was intriguing to me, not only because some of it takes place in Menton, but a......more