“The Aquatic Uncle” is about a relative of Qfwfq’s who shames his family by contentedly staying put in a lagoon after the rest have all removed to the land. Not that Calvino is writing programmatically in these stories. He is not really backward-looking, he simply maintains that “anyone who wants to see the earth properly must keep himself at a necessary distance from it,” and many of his views and attitudes are in the best sense progressive.
![italo calvino the baron in the trees italo calvino the baron in the trees](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617355947l/820645._SY475_.jpg)
![italo calvino the baron in the trees italo calvino the baron in the trees](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390736337l/73507.jpg)
![italo calvino the baron in the trees italo calvino the baron in the trees](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tabs.web.media/c/w/cwei/cwei-square-1536.jpg)
In The Baron in the Trees Cosimo appears to be retrogressing by “returning” to an arboreal existence, but his love of life prevails over the restrictions he has imposed on himself by a childish act of defiance. What adds an element of power to the ingenious, humorous, and charming fantasy of these tales is the palpable though undeclared them which runs through them, the urge to evolve, the sense in the most primitive forms of life of better things to come, the touching readiness to adopt a receptive posture toward “the future.” In Cosmicomics, simple organisms yearn forward, innocently and trustingly, toward the next stage in evolution. The opening story, which makes the film 2001 look about as imaginative as a spilled bucket of distemper, tells of the time when the moon was so close to the earth that Qfwfq and his companions could row out in a boat and scramble up on it to collect Moonmilk, which was “very thick, like a kind of cream cheese.” In the closing story Qfwfq argues that, though the mollusk remained blind itself, it was the cause of eyes in other species by virtue of producing something to be seen-a beautiful shell. Some of these epithets, I imagine, will be applied to Calvino’s new book, a collection of linked stories, or “evolutionary tales.” The narrator, old (indeed remarkably old, or ageless, or even young) Qfwfq, tells of his experiences at various stages of evolution, as a young vertebrate who is in process of deserting the sea for the land, as the last of the dinosaurs anxiously concealing his identity from the New Ones, for whom his sort are doubtfully mythical figures of dread, like giants in later history (“You looked as if you’d seen…a Dinosaur!”), and as a mollusk knowing love and jealousy. Calvino’s reviewers were forced to dip into a new (or perhaps old) word-hoard: “mellow,” “graceful,” “beautifully written,” “delightful,” “antique ease and enjoyment,” “a lovely book.” It is cheering to deduce from the modest success of The Baron in the Trees that there is still interest in something quite other than the Great American Novel (and smaller British one), the Apocalyptic-Excremental or Sexual Variations without a Theme, that there is still interest in an art which is more concerned with life and growth than with decay and death. He has lived according to his lights, he has never compromised, yet neither has he renounced his species.
Italo calvino the baron in the trees full#
Between these two eccentric events, Cosimo has led a reasonably full life, it occurs to us, and a more than usually satisfying one. The old dying man is swept out of the branches by the anchor of a balloon belonging to some English aeronauts and his body is never seen again. Cosimo forswore the earth as an act of rebellion against his family, and even when he dies, he does not return.
![italo calvino the baron in the trees italo calvino the baron in the trees](https://i.etsystatic.com/11565693/r/il/3e06ae/2763115763/il_fullxfull.2763115763_q6jl.jpg)
(The blurbwriter was inspired to an unusual wittiness on this occasion, remarking that women were quite ready to go out on a limb for Cosimo.) Our hero studied the Encyclopédistes, fought a duel with a Spanish Jesuit, led successful campaigns against wolves, forest fires, and Mohammedan pirates, acquired a press and printed pamphlets composed by himself (such as The Magpie’s Gazette), became Master of an unorthodox Lodge of Freemasons (“he who had never wanted nor built nor inhabited any house with walls”), was visited by Napoleon (“Were I not the Emperor Napoleon, I would like to be the citizen Cosimo Rondò”), etc., etc. In the interests of credibility, we were shown how eminently possible it was for Cosimo to lead “a normal life,” all the way from performing his daily duties in a decent, hygienic manner to performing the act of love in a comfortable as well as sometimes a rather acrobatic fashion. Within the story’s charming premises there was space for Calvino’s highly developed and humanistic imagination to accomplish quite a lot. Italo Calvino’s novel, The Baron in the Trees (Random House, 1959), concerned an Italian nobleman who took to the trees as a boy and never came down to earth again.