The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Italo CalvinoRead
The contradiction [trying to use Russian model to reshape Italy] grew to such an extent that I felt totally cut off from the communist world and, in the end, from politics. That was fortunate. The idea of putting literature in second place, after politics, is an enormous mistake, because politics almost never achieves its ideals.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Literature should take precedence over politics, as politics often fails to fulfill its ideals.
In this quote, Italo Calvino expresses his disillusionment with the political realm, particularly the communist ideology that seeks to reshape cultures like Italy. He emphasizes the importance of literature and artistic expression as superior to political ambitions, arguing that while politics seeks to achieve noble goals, it frequently falls short, thus rendering literature, with its capacity to explore deeper truths, more significant and meaningful.
Themes
LiteraturePoliticsIdealsDisillusionmentArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary discussion about the importance of artistic integrity over political agendas.
More from Italo Calvino
All quotes →Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment when you make the big leap; the opportunity to express yourself is offered that once, and you untie the knot within you then or never again.
Italo CalvinoRead
...and every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells.
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Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.
Italo CalvinoRead
The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.
Italo CalvinoRead
Fantasy is like jam. . . . You have to spread it on a solid piece of bread. If not, it remains a shapeless thing . . . out of which you can’t make anything.
Italo CalvinoRead
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