Into the War
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Average rating3.8
"These three stories, set during the summer of 1940, draw on Italo Calvino's memories of his own adolescence during the Second World War, too young to be forced to fight in Mussolini's army but old enough to be conscripted into the Italian youth brigades. The callow narrator of these tales observes the mounting unease of a city girding itself for war, the looting of an occupied French town, and nighttime revels during a blackout. Appearing here in its first English translation, Into the War is one of Calvino's only works of autobiographical fiction. It offers both a glimpse of this writer's extraordinary life and a distilled dram of his wry, ingenious literary voice."--from cover, page [4].
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This is apparently a book that Calvino was not proud of. The introduction explains, Calvino was not fond of the genre of autobiography nor fictional works that veer into its territory. Though he may find himself embarrassed in indulging in the use of memory in the crafting of a story, he does it extremely well.
The three stories all give us, the reader, a window into the world of a young Italo Calvino as fascism rises and war looms in Italy. Through this setting, we see the existential qualms of a young man facing a world on the horizon of large and terrifying possibilities. We also see how the peaceful nature of his parents contributed to his outlook on life and his rejection of Italian fascism.
This also gave me the chance to learn more about his life by doing a little research on my own before and after reading.
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