Under the Jaguar Sun [Paperback]

Italo Calvino (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 1990

Three senses-taste, hearing, and smell-dominate the lives of the characters in these witty, fantastical stories. But the senses, promising the fulfillment of desire and an exit from the self, only lead back to their source: the savoring palate, the listening ear, the smelling nose. “A sumptuous small gem of a book” (Publishers Weekly). Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A sumptuous small gem of a book, this volume contains three of the tales on the five senses planned by Calvino, who died last year. Taste, hearing, and smell receive arch and imaginative treatment in language that links every sense to love. The wife and husband of the title story visit Mexico, where they become so enamored of the spicy cuisine that their gasps and raptures are transferred from the bedroom to the dining table. The local religious art and architecture gain deeper meaning for the couple as they become more sensually attuned to the subtlest range of flavors. In "A King Listens," a monarch sits riveted to his throne and paralyzed with fear, trying to hear every fragile sound that reverberates in his palace. Any "acoustical sign" may be open to interpretation; even silence and the flow of time are audible, perhaps ominous. Far from the palace walls, a woman's song beckons the king, promising freedom. "The Name, the Nose" focuses on the unique scent of a desired female, whether it is the costly product of a parfumerie on the Champs-Elysees, or the rank aroma of a woman asleep in a beery den. The trio provides exquisite fare from one of Italy's masters.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Many 17th-century artists took the five senses as a theme. Calvino revived this idea in these threeof what had been a projected fivestories, each informed by a conscious and comprehensive sensuality. A married couple visiting Mexico savors the spicy cuisine, complexly linked to the carnal preoccupations of both native and colonial religions and to their own erotic complicity. A paranoid despot, fantastically unable to stir from his throne, lives through his hearing. Parallel diachronic strands in the final story point up similarities among a primitive hominid, a 19th-century Parisian dandy, and a London rock musician, all obsessed by the fleeting scent of a femalea scent mingled with the odor of death. Baroque but unforced, these stories whet the appetite for "sight" and "touch"alas, left incomplete at Calvino's death. Patricia Dooley, Univ. of Washinton Lib. Sch., Seattle
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 5, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156927942
• ISBN-13: 978-0156927949
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #753,406 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three Studies On A Theme, August 23, 2000

By 

Mark Valentine (Port Angeles, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Under the Jaguar Sun (Paperback)

I think that these three short stories act as a study on perception and awareness. Each story embodies a sense: In the first story, "Under The Jaguar Sun," Calvino writes about the sense of taste; in the second, "A King Listens," he writes about the sense of hearing; and finally, in "The Name, The Nose," he writes about the olfactory sense. Reading all three in sequence, the stories take on the texture of a novella (Calvino, unfortunately, died before he could complete two more stories of senses).

Each story is entirely different. What I enjoyed about the second story is the Poe-like ("The Pit And The Pendulum") Dostoyevsky-esque ("Notes From The Underground") nature of a King's interior monologue of living as a monarch. The Palace becomes corporeal and the mannerisms of regality become personality traits. But what the king hears takes him into his own thoughts, leading him into an implosion of spirit.

Pick it up if your are a Calvino fan. If not, reading it might be a good way to become a Calvino fan.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Posthumous -- and it shows, December 26, 2001

By 

Phil Moores (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Jaguar Sun (Paperback)

A collection of 3 short stories. Each deals with one of the senses and were going to be part of a projected suite with, presumably, some kind of framing device. Calvino was one of those happy people that can write works that stretch the intellect without altogether sacrificing story, plot and characterisation. The middle tale ('A King Listens') is unsuccessful, ending up as nothing more than an experiment - who knows whether it would have improved had he time to revise it, it was the last thing he wrote before his death. But the opening and closing stories are much better, especially the latter ('The Name, The Nose'), although still not prime Calvino (try 'Adam One Afternoon', 'Invisible Cities' or 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller' if you're new to the writer and want to know what his talents can *really* produce). 'Under the Jaguar Sun', the title story set in Mexico, deals with taste and develops the idea of human relationships as a form of canibalism in which we digest our partner to taste their thoughts, feelings, desires and wishes in order to make them part of ourselves. 'The Name, The Nose' takes three characters (a Proustian aesthete, a prehistoric apeman on the verge of walking upright and a drug-addled rock musician) that are all in love with an unknown woman identifiable only by her scent, eventually discovering that she has died since making love with them. Despite the differences in the characters, their tales are interlinked surpringly smoothly and satisfyingly. However, due to its posthumous nature, the book is very short, only 83 pages of big type, and so can only be recommended to Calvino fans.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag, April 20, 2001

By 

Ryan "The Doctor" (Meadville, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Jaguar Sun (Paperback)

I'm a Calvino mark. Simply said, I love the man's writing! This, however, is a mixed bag, in my opinion. A truly interesting theme (stories about the senses) the only one I really liked was the story dealing with the sense of smell ("The Man, The Nose" I believe.) Its not that the others weren't imaginative or beautifully crafted, but I just felt as if something didn't click for me. The first two tales about the sense of taste and the sense hearing were a little too... self-indulgent, perhaps? It is somewhat difficult to articulate. All in all, this is suitable more for the true Calvino fan, rather than as an introduction or the casual reader. The one lasting impression I drew from the collection was, "What about sight and touch?" Maybe next time around.