The Memory Of the

World
Italo Calvino
1968
Sunday, August 7, 2011
!"#$%&'#$()*%
October 15, 1923 - September 19, 1985
born in Santiago de Las Vegas, a suburb of Havana, Cuba
His family is in to Science and in Agriculture, especially his father
He is a fan of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as a child;
Calvino felt that his early interest in stories made him the "black sheep" of his family
He became an Italian writer, journalist and novelist
Through his two autobiographical essays, Calvino described himself as
"atheist" and his outlook as "non-religious"
Sunday, August 7, 2011
!"#$%&'#$()*%
According to Calvino, he went through intellectual depression
because of Vittorinis death;
"...I ceased to be young. Perhaps it's a metabolic process,
something that comes with age, I'd been young for a long
time, perhaps too long, suddenly I felt that I had to begin my
old age, yes, old age, perhaps with the hope of prolonging it by
beginning it early."
Calvino died in Santa Maria dela Scalla hospital because of cerebral
hemorrhage
Lionised in Britain and the United States: most-translated contemporary
Italian writer at the time of his death, and a noted contender for the Nobel
Prize for Literature
Sunday, August 7, 2011
!"#$%&'#$()*%
Authors whom Calvino helped publish
Mario Rigoni Stern Gianni Celati
Andrea De Carlo
Daniele Del Giudice
Leonardo Sciascia
Sunday, August 7, 2011
!"#$%&'#$()*%
Best known works
If on a winter's night a traveler
(1979).
Invisible Cities
(1972)
The Cosmicomics collection of
short stories
(1965)
Our Ancestors trilogy
(19521959)
Sunday, August 7, 2011
!"#$%&'#$()*%
Films on Italo Calvino
Damian Pettigrew, Inside Italo (Lo specchio di Calvino, 2011)
Feature-length docuction co-produced by ARTE France, Italy's Ministero per i
Beni e le Attivit Culturali, and the National Film Board of Canada.
Starring Neri Marcor as the famous Italian writer, the lm uses in-depth
conversations videotaped at Calvino's Rome penthouse a year before his
death in 1985 and rare footage from INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel),
RAI, and BBC television archives
Sunday, August 7, 2011
!"#$%&'#$()*%
Awards
1946 L'Unit Prize (shared with Marcello Venturi) for the short story,
Mineeld (Campo di mine)
1947 Riccione Prize for The Path to the Nest of Spiders
1952 Saint-Vincent Prize
1957 Viareggio Prize for The Baron in the Trees
1959 Bagutta Prize
1960 Salento Prize for Our Ancestors
1963 International Charles Veillon Prize for The Watcher
1970 Asti Prize
1972 Feltrinelli Prize for Invisible Cities
1976 Austrian State Prize for European Literature
1981 Legion of Honour
1982 World Fantasy Award - Life Achievement
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The Memory Of the World
characters.setting.plot
Italo Calvinos
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Setting and Characters
Muller
successor
will be appointed as the Organizations new Director
Director
handles the Organization
Angela
Wife of the Director
Setting was inside the Directors Ofce.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Plot
Organization
the largest database in the world.
les supposed to record everything that is
known about people, animals and things.
Org. Director talks to Muller
his successor
and to be appointed as the new Director
talked about:SECRETS, GOALS and PLANS of the Organization
CENTRAL MEMORY
ALL Information (condensed, miniature)
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Plot
GOAL: for the End of the World
pass on what we know to others
there must be creatures like us somewhere in the millions of unknown planets.
COMMUNICATING the memory to them
Extra galactical archeologists may reach the relics of our planet.
Mans Extinction
Importance of Information . Language . Infos arent wasted
Disregard all that would confuse and overshadow other, more
essential things
(would create chaos and noise rather than communication)
Director can have a personal stamp on the Memory of the World.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Plot
LIES
lies are the only real information we can communicate
moderate use of lies whenever they would simplify the message
rather than complicating it.
Angela
Image of a happy couple (great romance, in the memory of the world Angelas image is
denite and perfect)
Suspicious
Erased the records people (colleagues) Angela (and even Angela herself)
had intimate relations with
correcting the memory of the world by matching it with the world of the living.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Different Themes
End of the World (Apocalypse)
Preserving the memory
Post Apocalyptic
Language and Communication
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Post Apocalyptic
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Post Apocalyptic
set in a world or civilization after such a disaster.
ume frame mav be lmmedlaLelv aer Lhe caLasLrophe, focuslna on Lhe
Lravalls or psvcholoav of survlvors, or conslderablv laLer
oen lncludlna Lhe Lheme LhaL Lhe exlsLence of pre-caLasLrophe clvlllzauon has
been foraouen (or mvLholoalzed).
osL-apocalvpuc sLorv llnes Lake place ln Lhe !"#$%!&' of a
dlsasLer - Lvplcallv nuclear !"#"$%&'(, )%*, +#%,&- - LhaL [usues a clvlllzauon's
Lurn Lowards dvsLoplan llke behavlors. AlLhouah noL a requlslLe, mosL posL-
apocalvpuc vlslons have a man-made cause.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Post Apocalyptic
the late 1940s and 50s
darker approach has emerged in Science Fiction towards the post apocalyptic idea - a
world, which had experienced the World War II
There has been a decline in positive, utopian visions of the future and an
increase particularly in Science Fiction - of visions of imminent decline and
disaster
Human-caused end to the civilization - more powerful and sensible than a
natural catastrophe
Mankind has experienced the threat of natural disasters and plagues and even though
of a possible collision with a comet, but has never been this close to its own destruction
by a war.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Post Apocalyptic
post-holocaust and post-catastrophe (before)
the lms after 1950s use the term post-apocalyptic
Apocalypse in Science Fiction = mirror theme for the fear of the uncontrollable
consequences of the human evolution
The overwhelming acceleration of the technological developments
and globalization
central cause for post-apocal ypti c theori es i n the second hal f of the 20
th
centur y.
The soci ety structure i n post-apocalypti c movi es are pa r a l l el
t o t hei r t i me of ma ki ng a nd t hei r budg et . Al s o, t he
a ma l g a ma t i on of t he primitive and advanced tools and vehicles, depict
both regression and progression in the post-apocalypse technol ogy.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Post Apocalyptic
The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of
granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows
who created themand he's not talking.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
M O V I E
The Book
of Eli


The 6th Day
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The Book of Eli
A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone
man fights his way across America in
order to protect a sacred book that holds
the secrets to saving humankind.
March 2010
Starring:
Denzel Washington
Mila Kunis
Ray Stevenson
Directed by:
Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The 6th Day
Futuristic action about a man who
meets a clone of himself and stumbles
into a grand conspiracy about clones
taking over the world.
January 2001
Starring:
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Michael Rapaport
Tony Goldwyn
Directed by:
Roger Spottiswoode
Sunday, August 7, 2011