Thinking of my own many, many stories started, often just a paragraph or two, sometimes a few pages, I cannot help but envy Calvino this novel chance to create from scraps and pieces.
His stories do intrigue. In Looks down in the gathering shadow we do find an entirely different set of characters and scenery. Or do we?
I’ve done the bit of puzzle-izing over the titles of these stories interspersed between the chapters of the ‘main’ story. Obviously there must be a clue in the non-capitalization of all the words of the titles, no? I have put them together and as yet, in sequence they still do not make sense. But maybe they will eventually and I can still claim cleverness for having rooted out the solution to the mystery.
This story is of a man who has murdered a pursuer from his past and with the help of a young woman tries to rid himself of the body. But the man tells us a more interesting tale: he comes from many pasts and thought he’d free himself from one by starting over. Unfortunately, he comes to the realization that they do not erase themselves, but rather they accumulate to become yet a heavier burden.
And then it hits me: Perhaps he is one and the same in every story; perhaps these are not new characters at all…
Calvino certainly keeps you thinking not only of the tales he weaves but more–at least for this reader–the how of them.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology