Marcovaldo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marcovaldo is a collection of twenty short stories written by Italo Calvino. It was initially published as Marcovaldo ovvero Le stagione in città (Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City). It was published in 1963 but the first stories were written in the early 1950s. The twenty stories have been structured so as to represent the yearly seasonal cycle five times.

The Marcovaldo series depicts the life of a poor rural man with his family living in a big industrial city in northern Italy. The central character Marcovaldo has an affinity with nature and a distaste with city life. In each story Marcovaldo succumbs to something that appears natural and beautiful but actually disappoints him. Common themes in the stories include pollution, appearance vs. reality, failure, poverty and consumerism. In each story, nature is portrayed as positive whereas the city is portrayed in a negative way. There is a sublime episode when Marcovaldo is woken from his park-bench dream by the sound of sheep bleating, as they are driven in the early morning from one side of the city to another.

Marcovaldo works at Sbav and Co.

[edit] List of Characters

Marcovaldo: Main Character

Domitilla: Wife of Marcovaldo