The Road to San Giovanni

150 pp. Translated from the Italian by Tim Parks. This major testament by Italo Calvino is composed of five strikingly elegant "memory exercises" about his life and work. The title piece, "The Road to San Giovanni," poignantly evokes his childhood home. "A Cinema-Goer's Autobiography" tells of his adolescence, when he was riveted by American films starring Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, and others. "Memories of a Battle" is at once a reminiscence of his experience in a partisan unit during World War II and a reflection on the roles of real and imagined memories. "La Poubelle Agree" is a Parisian set piece, and "From the Opaque" is essentially his writer's credo.