The Castle of Crossed Destinies

New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 1976. First Edition USA [1985], so stated. First Printing indicated by a . complete alphabetical sequence; First Printing. Hardcover. First Edition USA [1976] the alphabetical sequence begins with 'B' and the right margin; thus a First Printing. Very Good In Very Good DJ: The Book shows a hint of shelf-rubbing to the bottom edges; faint spotting at the top edges of the black quarter cloth; a faint waviness to the text block due no doubt to exposure to moisture (but no dampstaining is present and there on no mildew odor) ; a mild nudge to the upper front corner tip; a former owner's short gift inscription adorns the flyleaf; the binding is slightly cocked; the binding is secure; the text is clean. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of underlining hi-lighting notations or marginalia. A handsome copy structurally sound and tightly bound showing several minor imperfections. The DJ shows light wear to the head and heel of the backstrip and to the upper front cornet tip; else only mild rubbing to the panels; the price is intact, but there is a faint crease near it at the upper corner of the interior flap; the white background field of the interior flaps shows some age-toning. Attractive and intact, but not without flaw. NOT a Remainder Book-Club or Ex-Library. 8vo. (9.5 x 6.5 x 0.75 inches) . Illustrated throughout with duotone representations of Tarot Cards and with an Eight-page section of color plates with depictions of Tarot cards. Translated by William Weaver. Weight: 19 ounces. Marbled boards with black quarter cloth over boards gilt titles at the backstrip. Pictorial DJ with black background field and gilt text at the panels and backstrip and colorful depictions of Tarot cards at the panels. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book. Hardback with DJ. Italo Calvino (1923 – 1985) was an Italian writer best known for works including the 'Our Ancestors' trilogy (1952–1959) the 'Cosmicomics' collection of short stories (1965) and the novels 'Invisible Cities' (1972) and 'If on a winter's night a traveler' (1979). Especially admired in Britain Australia and the United States Calvino was the most translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death. A series of short, fantastic narratives inspired by fifteenth-century tarot cards and their archetypical images. The structure of the narrative is very interesting and is in some ways a commentary on all narration and also on the underlying archetypes of narration. Thus for readers of fiction, this short book, a collection of stories, offers food for thought about how a story is created or re-created as the case may be. The book is written in two sections. In both, a traveler comes to a castle or tavern where no one can speak and each person at the table tells their story or tale using the Tarot cards. There are many stories related here but the curiosity is that one person's series of cards can then be criss-crossed with another traveler's cards to form a grid which can be read backward and forward, up and down. Thus the elements of the narrative can be used and reused in creating narration in an infinite number of patterns with the cards having different meanings depending on the sequence in which they are read. This strongly hints at the psychology of Carl Jung and the universal archetypes that play a role in each person's psychological makeup. However a story requires that the actors show action and thus the series of cards in and of themselves do not relate very much action, which must be interpreted by the mute teller to the listeners. The randomness of this is certainly a protection against cliché but some of the stories generated with this methodology left me a bit unsatisfied. There are many magical characters and yet the stories, for all their strangeness, seemed to end up abruptly. Throughout the book are illustrations of the cards mentioned on that particular page, a nice touch. Also at then end of the book is a diagram mapping Calvino's interpretation of Shakespeare's great tragedies. ; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 260 pages .