Overly pedantic and lacking the usual intrigue in Calvino's books (such as the second-person narration of "if on a winter's night a traveler"). Perhaps a more scientific mind would appreciate it more. All said, while individual tidbits and stories were amusing, the piece lacked coherency as a whole. Normally one would not say that a collection of short stories 'should' connect as a whole, but Cosmicomics has the singularity of all the stories having the same narrator, leading to a disjointed felling of the narrator's identity and the flow of time. ( )

Despite his Tuscan home, Calvino's Cosmicomics is a must-read for all fans of mid-century South American literature. The wit and fantasy underlying this series of connected stories is surprisingly close to Cortazar's [book: Cronopios and Famas] or Borges's more fantastical pieces. True--you're most apt to see Calvino's works in the hands of that post-modern, comp lit student at the coffeeshop (you know, the one with the asymmetrical bangs and the iPod full of Sigur Ros albums). Don't let that scare you away. Calvino has created a fantastic world that deserves to be explored. ( )

The Infinite Narrator turns out to be . . .Groucho: Twelve stories of varying quality told-not by
a whale or a woodworm-but by a character who is as
old as creation. Now an infinite narrator could have
a lot of different voices. He/she/it could even be
voiceless, or speak by vibrating the molecules of
the universe.
Sorry, I got carried away there. Anyway, the voice thatCalvino chooses is the voice of in ironically-inclined
grandpa telling an unprecedented set of Just So stories.
Distance of the Moon is the easiest of these to like and
the one most sure to make it to anthologies. The Aquatic
Uncle-a story about creatures leaving the ocean and living,
joyfully, rebelliously on land-is the most socially apt.

But all of them, even in the hands of a playful narrator who
himself/herself/itself has no shape until the very last story, are
remarkably about love.

Does any of this make sense? Well, probably not. But it
makes something: a playful, avuncular poem maybe,or maybe
just a great read.


--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the novel bang BANG. ISBN 9781601640005

Ordinary Girl's Cosmocomics Review ( )

Brilliant writing which is spoiled by the jarring way in which it tries to reconcile with, and clashes with scientific fact. Most of the stories try to base their premise on scientific fact but botch it up with bad physics. The first story for example is based on the fact that the moon was nearer to the earth in the past, and it bases the story on a tribe which jumps onto the moon on fullmoon nights and recovers moon-milk. This is just ruined by the fact that if the moon were as close to the earth as the story has it, it would be orbiting the earth in around an hour and a half, making all this impossible. It also has crazy stuff like lighter objects floating up to the moon, which again is not how gravity works. I am not opposed to creative license and fantasy, but then it should be like Douglas Adams, and not try to depend on a scientific crutch. However, there are three stories in the collection which I liked: `All at One Point', `The Aquatic Uncle', & `What shall we bet?' ( )