📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #9 THE DINOSAURS
Original topic subject: 📚APR 2026 Cosmiccomics #10 THE DINOSAURS
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1DebiCates
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino translated by William Weaver, collection first published 1965.
Discussion links:
Introduction
The Distance of the Moon
At Daybreak
A Sign in Space
All at One Point
Without Colors
Games Without End
The Aquatic Uncle
How Much Shall We Bet?
The Dinosaurs (This page)
The Form of Space
The Light-Years
The Spiral
Final Thoughts
Discussion links:
Introduction
The Distance of the Moon
At Daybreak
A Sign in Space
All at One Point
Without Colors
Games Without End
The Aquatic Uncle
How Much Shall We Bet?
The Dinosaurs (This page)
The Form of Space
The Light-Years
The Spiral
Final Thoughts
2DebiCates
The more stories I read, it seems Calvino was telling us a lot about ourselves. It was especially apparent in this story, about the extinct dinosaurs.
Qfwfq lived as a dinosaur for a long while, up through the extinction. He felt he was the only survivor and lived in fear of being discovered by the "New Ones", proto-mammals, who, in turn, had terrors of dinosaurs, although several generations had past and they had never seen one.
After living a long time in safe exile, resenting fellow dinosaurs for being so dumb as to become extinct, also saw it was inevitable. Finally, the boredom and loneliness got to him and he decided to face his fate. He left his hideout and went out into the world, which now looked very different.
Other creatures at this time were evolving quickly (now that the dinosaurs were gone and didn't have dominion), and thought he was merely another strange looking creature, called him the "Ugly One" and a group that was building a dam for easier fishing, accepted him because he looked strong.
Knowing himself to be a dinosaur, he had to live carefully, always afraid someone would recognize him and with the group would tear him to pieces. None did. But he was a stranger, they knew it, he knew it. As is true with all strangers in a strange land, it was fraught with tensions that kept rising, rising and then a truce, a change in perceptions, then another tension, testing the relationship again.
Qfwfq didn't think much of the New Ones, seeing in them the same over confidence he saw in the dinosaurs. He was both attracted to and also repelled by one, Fern Flower. She pushed his buttons you might say, but not in a good way. He saw in her an over-sentimentality, and he was in no mood for that kind of perspective.
Later a caravan of travelers came through, and he noticed a female that he thought must be a hybrid, half dinosaur half New One, or at least genetically had dinosaurs in her family tree with those genes now reappearing. He whisked her off for a night, and later discovered she had a son, a son that looked like Qfwfq. Instead of staying and making a relationship with him, he asked his son who he was, he said he was a "New One." Qfwfq didn't seem to resent that, but left on the first train.
There is something very familiar about his story, a story about a misfit, out of Time and in a world he no longer recognized nor cares about. He doesn't lament the past, doesn't look forward to any future, is resigned feeling no connection to any of it. It is a story about a lot of feelings of alienation that at any given we might feel ourselves.
Qfwfq lived as a dinosaur for a long while, up through the extinction. He felt he was the only survivor and lived in fear of being discovered by the "New Ones", proto-mammals, who, in turn, had terrors of dinosaurs, although several generations had past and they had never seen one.
After living a long time in safe exile, resenting fellow dinosaurs for being so dumb as to become extinct, also saw it was inevitable. Finally, the boredom and loneliness got to him and he decided to face his fate. He left his hideout and went out into the world, which now looked very different.
Other creatures at this time were evolving quickly (now that the dinosaurs were gone and didn't have dominion), and thought he was merely another strange looking creature, called him the "Ugly One" and a group that was building a dam for easier fishing, accepted him because he looked strong.
Knowing himself to be a dinosaur, he had to live carefully, always afraid someone would recognize him and with the group would tear him to pieces. None did. But he was a stranger, they knew it, he knew it. As is true with all strangers in a strange land, it was fraught with tensions that kept rising, rising and then a truce, a change in perceptions, then another tension, testing the relationship again.
Qfwfq didn't think much of the New Ones, seeing in them the same over confidence he saw in the dinosaurs. He was both attracted to and also repelled by one, Fern Flower. She pushed his buttons you might say, but not in a good way. He saw in her an over-sentimentality, and he was in no mood for that kind of perspective.
Later a caravan of travelers came through, and he noticed a female that he thought must be a hybrid, half dinosaur half New One, or at least genetically had dinosaurs in her family tree with those genes now reappearing. He whisked her off for a night, and later discovered she had a son, a son that looked like Qfwfq. Instead of staying and making a relationship with him, he asked his son who he was, he said he was a "New One." Qfwfq didn't seem to resent that, but left on the first train.
There is something very familiar about his story, a story about a misfit, out of Time and in a world he no longer recognized nor cares about. He doesn't lament the past, doesn't look forward to any future, is resigned feeling no connection to any of it. It is a story about a lot of feelings of alienation that at any given we might feel ourselves.
