Fairy Tales: Remarkable Italo Calvino

Like Grimm, Lang, and Perrault, Calvino is a must-read when it comes to fairy tales. 

Italo Calvino's 1956 Italian Folktales arrives with a pleasantly nuanced and modern introduction. 

It is notable for several points:

1. Calvino addresses the unifying nature of a folktale collection. With both the Brothers Grimm and with Italo Calvino, the tales come from "states" within a nation, separate regions that historically did not necessarily perceive themselves as belonging to a single culture. 

While acknowledging the motives and challenges of prior collectors, Calvino's efforts are far more self-conscious since he is aware of the ephemeral nature of "place." Moreover, he makes the important point that "international circulation of common tales does not exclude their [regional] diversity" since every teller emphasizes particular elements. Along the same lines, storytellers will assume knowledge by their listeners depending on their location--find it necessary or not necessary to describe customs and governances (the point Calvino makes here is why I suggest that "true" tales tend to leave out details rather than incorporate them). 

Calvino doesn't disguise his own role. By bringing the tales together, he is consciously and deliberately creating a "unity." 

2. Calvino addresses elements of the Cupid & Psyche myth that show up again and again in "romantic" tales, which address "every love thwarted and forbidden by law, convention, or social disparity. That is why it has been possible, from prehistory to the present, to preserve, not as a fixed formula but as a flowing element, the sensuality so often underlying this love, evident in the ecstasy and frenzy of mysterious nocturnal embraces." 

I will return to Calvino's point when the list reaches Beauty & the Beast and its accompanying motifs. 

3. Calvino's introduction is renowned for the extraordinary line: "folktales are real." Tales reflect the human condition, the human experience. Although Calvino soured on communism (as many idealists did with Stalin), he saw the tales as reflecting a reality that dovetailed with his political sympathies: the day-to-day burden of poverty, the struggle for subsistence. 

Calvino's introduction is far too deprecating. Based on his own words, I approached the book--a birthday present from my early twenties--with some worries that the tales would be romanticized "intellectual" retellings, not that different from the "original" Princess Bride that Goldman cleverly mocks in his seminal work. 

But Calvino was a honest collector. The tales read like tales and include all the uncomfortable details of their originals, such as the punishment of the slave who attempts to marry the king in place of the princess (reminiscent of "The Goose Girl," another uncomfortable tale) and the simpleton who blithely kills the joker who pretended to be dead: "Well, now he is." 

An honest and dedicated collector: like Poe with his three mystery tales, Calvino covered nearly every type of tale that fairy tales offer.