Customer Reviews

Mr.Palomar (Picador Books)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Italo Calvino's book, "Mr. Palomar," is a superbly crafted novel about an intellectual quest for order and reason in a chaotic and unreasonable world. Should this sound like rather dry and uninteresting reading, be assured that it is not. Calvino is a great story teller, and in Mr. Palomar he has found a character that provides him with a medium, a vehicle, to deliver stories of great beauty, humor, wit and pathos.

In books about the theories of complexity and chaos there is usually a chapter dedicated to the task of explaining that it is only in the boundary between order and chaos that all of the really interesting things are possible, including life. Mr. Palomar's mistake is in thinking that things would be better (or, at least he'd be less anxious) if he could just figure out how to get everything to calmly step over to the "ordered" side of the line. He is the twentieth century's Don Quixote, not on a romantic quest but an intellectual one; not fighting off the advancing windmills (that battle has already been lost), but desperately trying to reason his way into a moment of Zen-like clarity and peace.

It may seem that Mr. Palomar brings to his task of putting the world in order a formidable intellect. He is, indeed, very bright and often brilliant. But Calvino implies early and often that Mr. Palomar doesn't so much possess an intellect as he is possessed by one. Mr. Palomar may have the illusion that he brings his intellect to bear on one thing or another but, in truth, his intellect has its own agenda and Mr. Palomar is simply along for the ride.

It is Mr. Palomar's inability to escape his own intellect that produces both the funniest and saddest moments in the book. The chapter entitled "The Naked Bosom" reads like the misadventures of a philosophical "Mr. Bean." In it, Mr. Palomar is walking along the beach when he spots a young lady sunning herself topless. His initial experience quickly gives way to his trying to deliver a reasonable (a perfectly reasoned) response. Should he look away? Glance? Look for a moment with casual interest? More than casual interest? What is the correct response, free of cultural conditioning? Is his cultural upbringing out of date? As he passes by, he realizes that his thinking wasn't quite right, his response not quite perfect, so he turns around and tries it again ...

By the 4th pass, when he finally thinks he's got it right, the young woman has had enough, covers herself up, grabs her things and storms off. Mr. Palomar's reaction to the young woman's leaving in a "huff" is, as always, intellectually reasonable. He feels insulted that his efforts were not understood and he blames this, implicitly, on her failure to throw off the "dead weight of an intolerant tradition."

Calvino knew that what he was writing would be perceived not only at an intellectual level but also as humor and he crafts his story in a way that pays tribute to both, much as a great composer will intertwine melody and harmony. But he never wants us to forget that these melodies and harmonies are parts of a larger, more subtle theme: Mr. Palomar is imprisoned by a terrible irony: the only thing preventing him from experiencing the moment of clarity and beauty he is so desperate for is the overpowering intellect he is trying to find it with.

Mr. Palomar has far too much reason for the task and absolutely no sense. He can think, but he can't connect. This is why he has absolutely no idea how the young woman on the beach may have perceived him. Worse, he has no idea that she was anything other than a stage prop and audience for his quest for an "enlightened" response. Worse still, for him, he has no idea that he has no idea.

Contrary to what many critics have said of "Mr. Palomar," Calvino is not praising or even paying tribute to intellect or the powers of intellectual (and scientific) observation. His point is that having reason without sense (order without due respect for the messy, chaotic connections that life and living require) is an inescapable trap. In the end, Mr. Palomar's intellect is like a black hole. He begins quite pleased to find that everything comes to mind easily, and then discovers that nothing seems to be getting back out anymore. Then he spirals into himself trying to find some sense of who he is, some place from which to take a stand, but he ends up like a singularity. And then, in an instant, he is nothing at all.

Mr. Calvino makes his point in a way that is never didactic. He makes it in small, often subtle and frequently entertaining steps. If you accompany him along the way, he'll show you ocean waves, turtles, geckos, iguanas and weeds in the front lawn in ways you've never seen before. He'll do the same with goose fat, roof tops and, in another "Mr. Bean" moment, the stars. He'll have Mr. Palomar and an albino gorilla perform a duet for you, and perform a masterpiece in four-part harmony (played staccato, no less) with two birds and a married couple.

This book is without a doubt an intellectual treat, full of profound and deep observations. What makes it a book worthy of a 5 star rating, though, is that it is equally profound in ways our intellects can never fathom.

Here is another great example of how versatile a writer Italo Calvino was. His work always had a philosophical side to it, and in Mr. Palomar that side almost takes over completely.

Mr. Palomar is the main character (in fact, one of the only characters) and the world simply befuddles him to an extent that he needs to find order and meaning in everything. His attempts are often very funny, but how they're all inevitably spoilt is even funnier. Probably the best example of this is the section entitled "The Naked Bosom" - Palomar tries to find a way to both not deny himself the natural pleasure of seeing a topless sunbather and not denying the naked sunbather digity and respect. His attempts cause him to pass by the sunbather so frequently that she gets up in a huff. Good intentions, bad implementation. The book circles around similar themes, but within many different contexts. Palomar looks at waves, rhapsodizes on mating turtles, examines the night sky, examines the patrons of a cheese shop, etc. Mr. Palomar is always in natural and real-life situations, but over-analyzing them to a degree almost of unreality. Though it sometimes reads like a very heady, and bordering on the pretentious, book, it's actually a very funny book about trying to find meaning in life, and the inevitable problems one will likely have in finding meaning all by oneself. It almost reads like a parody of intellectualism; of someone so thirsting for knowledge that they forget their very surroundings and paradoxically neglect themselves and others in the process. The more Palomar examines the world, the less he feels comfortable in it, and the further he seems to drift from people and society. By the end of the book, Palomar is in pretty bad shape in this regard, and the book's final sentence will either stun you or make you laugh very hard. Yes, there is a story (and arguably a plot) it's just told very unconventionally.

Some of the standout sections are "The Naked Bosom" (mentioned earlier, about the sunbather), "Marble and Blood" (about hidden guilt in a butcher's shop), and "Serpents and Skulls" (about interpreting ancient meanings). All of these are at once funny and profound. Through Palomar's search the reader gets a peek at some of the great questions and some controversial issues. How one deals with these questions and issues is something every reflective, for those fortunate enough to have time and resources for reflection, human being must wrestle with. In the end the book asks a big question: "How to deal with all of this?" It is doubtful that Mr. Palomar provides a good example, but it is entertaining to follow his steps through the maze of existence's puzzles.

The table of contents of this book are not where one would expect. They have been put to the back of the book as an index, and coded thematically and experientially. The index explains the structure of the book. I can't say I've seen this approach elsewhere, but it makes me wonder if Palomar is responsible for them - is the index part of the parody?

Palomar is experimental, funny, profound, unconventional, and at last entertaining and challenging to read. This pretty much sums up all of Calvino's books. He never settled on one approach or one style for too long. One never knows what they're going to get when one picks up a book by Calvino.

The 27 reveries of Mr. Palomar are filled with paradox; in them we find gently profound ruminations on the cosmos as well as the embarrassments of ordinary human interaction. This is a book that makes us see the world around us in a different way.

Mr. Palomar, who shares the name of the observatory, is the emblem of the person as observer. Whether it is the ocean or the heavens, a cheese shop or an Aztec ruin, Mr. Palomar attempts to see and to comprehend what he sees. But the general theme of his attempts at observations is ultimately the failure, or at least the inadequacy, of his attempts.

Much of the book has an Aristotelian quality, which perhaps is not so surprising, considering that Mr. Palomar's enterprise, the attempt to understand the universe through careful observation, is Aristotle's approach at well. Much of the contemplation follows Aristotelian lines. Mr. Palomar is often immersed in Aristotelian efforts of categorization, of conceptually separating a part from the whole, and facing the question that looms so large in Aristotle: When can we derive the properties of the whole from the part, and when is the opposite true? Then again, the reader is reminded of Aristotle's "Parts of Animals" when Mr. Palomar describes the running giraffes and how each part of the giraffe's anatomy appears to be suited to a separate species, or when Mr. Palomar watches through his skylight as a gecko captures, ingests, and digests an insect.

But counterpoised with this, you have genuine "Walter Mitty" type moments when the real world interrupts the reverie. Mr. Palomar, waiting in a line in a cheese shop, is inspired by the actual cheeses he sees to construct a model world of cheese, and becomes so absorbed in this enterprise, that he at some point crosses over and mentally inhabits the model world. As in Thurber, the humor derives from the person who inhabits the imagined world having to deal with the sudden demands of the actual cheese shop.

One thing I recommend to a reader is, in reading through the sections (I guess one can refer to them as essays), to consider what causes Mr. Palomar to break off the contemplation. Sometimes, it is the intervention of the outside world. Sometimes it is that Mr. Palomar is overcome by a sort of vertigo at the immensity of space or time. Sometimes, Mr. Palomar hits upon a dualism, yes, we can view the object in such and such a way, but equally well in another way, and is unable to move beyond that point. By tracking these closing moments, one can best come to terms with Mr. Palomar's experience of failure.

When I first picked this up, I had to admit that I was skeptical. I am a great fan of Calvino but was put off by books description. The shtick of the viewer controlling and describing everything seemed more like a gimmick than a legit novel. Boy, was I wrong. I have never been more interested in viewing Saturn or seeing Starlings in Rome than after reading this. Please, do not get me wrong; I know it is about more than that. The thing is, like Invisible Cities, this book wraps itself around your psyche, hijacks your thoughts and informs your dreams. Calvino went out with a bang.

Revered experimental fiction author Italo Calvino is new to me, although he has been writing and winning honors since long before I was born. Mr. Palomar is one of his landmark novels. What's it about?

In one chapter, the protagonist goes to the beach; not to watch the waves, but to completely isolate and analyze -- dissect almost, with his intellect -- a single wave. The task he has set for himself is impossible to accomplish. So, "Mr. Palomar goes off along the beach, tense and nervous as when he came, and even more unsure about everything."

Poor Mr. Palomar. How many people fall victim to the "scientific" mindset and end up as stressed out and unhappy as Mr. Palomar? It brings to mind the writings of musicologist Christopher Small. From his book Music, Society and Education I learned that Rene Descartes philosophically chopped up everything, the mysterious whole, into categories; humans divided from nature, individual cut off from community, mind severed from body, and spirit divorced from intellect. And most of science acts as if these categories are true. When really they are about as useful as the self-imposed task of Mr. Palomar to analyze a single wave on the vast sea.

Calvino's descriptions of the waves brought to mind a writing of SGI Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth & Death: . . . And Everything in Between, A Buddhist View Life. He uses the ocean as a metaphor for the eternity of life. We in our individual bodies in this life are like waves on the ocean. When we die, it is as if our wave has crashed and reunited with the whole mysterious ocean, or cosmic sea of life, only to rise again as another wave. As Mr. Palomar observed at the beach (much to his chagrin), there truly is no separation between one wave and another. No separation between one life and another. No separation between you and me.

In another section of the novel,

"Mr. Palomar decides that from now on he will act as if he were dead... The gaze of the dead is always a bit deprecatory. Places, situations, occasions are more or less what one already knew, and recognizing them always affords a certain satisfaction... The dead should no longer give a damn about anything, because it is not up to them to think about it anymore; and even if that may seem immoral, it is in this irresponsibility that the dead find their gaiety.

The more Mr. Palomar's spiritual condition approaches the one here described, the more the idea of being dead seems natural to him."


This brings to mind a character in Colin Riggins' screenplay Harold and Maude. It pre-dates Mr. Palomar by almost two decades. In particular I'm thinking of the following bits of dialog from the transcript.

We see 19-year-old Harold in a psychiatrist's office, sent there by his ostentatiously wealthy mother after he staged one-too-many fake suicides to try and let her know how he suffered and to freak her out.

PSYCHIATRIST
Tell me, Harold,
what do you do for fun?
What activity gives you a different
sense of enjoyment from the others?
What do you find fulfilling?
What gives you that special...
satisfaction?


HAROLD
I go to funerals.

Later, Harold meets Maude, a 79-year-old survivor of a WWII Nazi concentration camp, who decided to embrace life with every molecule of her being. In the scene where they recline in kimonos, smoking a hookah in Maude's parked railcar, converted into sumptuous bohemian domesticity, they reflect on death and life.

HAROLD
I haven't lived.
I've died a few times.


MAUDE
What was that?

HAROLD
Well... The first time... these two policemen...told (my mother)
that I was killed in the fire.
She put one hand up to her forehead,
the other one she reached out
as if groping for support,
and with this long sigh,
she collapsed in their arms.
(beat)
I decided right then
that I enjoyed being dead.

MAUDE
I understand.
A lot of people enjoy being dead
but they're not dead really.
(beat)
They're just backing away from life.
Reach out and take a chance,
get hurt even,
but play as well as you can.
Go team, go!
Gimme an L, gimme an I,
gimme a V, gimme an E.
L-I-V-E, live.
(beat)
Otherwise you got nothing
to talk about in the locker room.


Colin Higgins said he believes his movie has endured because, "We're all Harold, and we all want to be Maude."

Mr. Palomar, in these sections of Calvino's novel, does not seem to have met his Maude, or Daisaku Ikeda, to show him another way. He seems stuck as pre-Maude Harold, chewing on the concept of living death like a dog worrying a bone.

([...] by Lynette Yetter, author of the novel, Lucy Plays Panpipes for Peace

The book was received on time and in great condition. I am very satisfied with this company's service.

If you want to write or improve your writing, this book will teach. Calvino's descriptions riff into philosophical meanderings where he draws fantastical connections, charming conclusions. At times indulgent, his writing is refreshing, funny, sharp. Throughout the book we follow Mr. Palomar as he observes. His gift is taking a seemingly inconsequential observation and making it unique, perplexing, and grand. No small feat.

This is a charming, lucid, thoughtful work, full of the beauties and difficulties of an observant and reflective life. It is a quietly important work and highly original.

Italo Calvino's short novel, "Mr. Palomar" (1983) is a thoughtful, philosophical work, elegantly written. As is sometimes the case with novels of ideas, the book is static with little in the way of action, drama, or character development. It is meditative with an overabundance of factual minutae in places with the result that neither the story nor the ideas come through well.

There are, nevertheless, a few good scenes in the book, good use of irony and ambiguity, and some provocative ideas. Thus, at the conclusion of a chapter, presenting Palomar's reflections from his terrace, he observes that "[i]t is only after you have come to know the surface of things, that you can venture to seek what is underneath.... But the surface of things is inexhaustible."(p.55) This is stuff for thought. But it is buried here in too much tedium.

There is little in the way of plot in this book. Instead the book consists of a number of short vignettes, elaborately organized under an index at the conclusion. The vignettes involve the meditations of Mr. Palomar, named after the famous telescope, who is an observer of nature, people, and his mind. He is quiet and reserved and keeps aloof from the hurly-burly of the everyday. The episodes take place in various locations, the beach, Palomar's home, Paris, Japan, and elsewhere, and it may be that he is to be taken as a symbol rather than as a real character.

The story is told with irony and I think the reader is meant to contrast the virtues of thought, restraint, self-sufficiency, and reserve in Mr Palomar with his alienation from the larger culture and with his aloneness and eccentricities. The stories follow a pattern in which Mr. Palomar's thoughts and experiences go radically off course as he is confronted with the reality of a world independent of his wishes.

As most reviewers have noted, the most memorable portion of this book is a chapter titled "The Naked Bosom" in which Mr. Palomar thinks about and responds to a topless sunbather on the beach. There is good irony here, a wry discussion of the relationship between the sexes, and a good illustration of how human sexuality stands outside of the order of nature, somehow, even to the most detached observer.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the book is much more slowly paced, loses itself in a welter of detail, and, for me, quickly becomes dull. I found that there just isn't enough to fasten upon here to make this book work successfully either as philosophy or novel.

This book traces Mr. Palomar's thoughts about various events. As the events or places that Palomar passively partakes in become funnier so do the thoughts of Mr. Palomar. The book isn't really totally conventional, or emotionally sweeping or anything but it evokes a certain feeling associated with a fictional train of thought, and then moralizes about this fictional line of thought at the end.

From what I could tell Mr. Palomar was meant to be sort of a banal character, with a topical knowledge of many subjects. I wonder what his thoughts would've been like reading books? So in conclusion I'm not really sure I got the point of this book, and the moralization that somehow Mr. Palomar is sort of dead. Or perhaps it's one of those meta-books, but meta-books aren't so good and mostly get by on font choice like some of this author's other books.

I think The book raised some interesting points in passing is what I can say about it.