MR Palomar

Sublime, refined, restrained, whimsical, structured, directional.

A cavalcade of scenes of incredible concentration, miniscule detail, and profound blurriness.

It's one of those books that's too perfect to give it five stars, at least on the first read. It's a lesson of all five of Calvino's memos, a final exploration and reflection of his aesthetic and philosophy, an eternal question of how and whether the author should view himself at all.

The contrasts in this book are indescribably distant, yet their allegories perfectly clear and multilayered. There's a clear message, a clear climax, even, in the bare-bones structure, yet it's probably a book you could read five hundred times, each focusing on a different point.

Too diffuse? Too incisive? You could say both. I wish I could just say how I felt, but right now I don't have words to describe it.