![italo calvino baron in the trees italo calvino baron in the trees](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330832524l/9806.jpg)
![italo calvino baron in the trees italo calvino baron in the trees](https://johnatkinsonbooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Italo-Calvino-Baron-In-The-Trees-First-Edition-600x600.jpg)
Jonathan Lethem, “ Italo for Beginners,” The New York Times, November 20, 2005. Calvino, with his frequent references to comics and folktales and film, and his droll probing of contemporary scientific and philosophical theories, had encompassed motifs associated with brows both high and low in an internationally lucid style, one wholly his own.” I’d recommend it to any high school student.“Calvino, it seemed to me, had managed effortlessly what no author in English could quite claim: his novels and stories and fables were both classically modernist and giddily postmodern, embracing both experiment and tradition, at once conceptual and humane, intimate and mythic. The book falls into the category of “a fun read,” with plenty of good humor and delightful invention, but since there is no character development and no overall dramatic development, it amounts to a well-written, allegorical fairy tale with historical, cultural, and political allusions. They will continue to steal from and kill each other, armies will wreak destruction, politicians will be venal, peasants will struggle in bewilderment and in the end, you die anyway. The message seems to be that despite the noble ideas of the Enlightenment, especially those about the sanctity of individual freedom, which the Baron emphatically chose, human beings will never change. He corresponds with Voltaire and Denis Diderot. The Baron enters the trees in 1767, and dies in the early 1800’s, so he experiences the French Enlightenment, the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the Reign of Terror. The second major element is the time frame. Only a madman thinks he can escape society. The Baron rises above the conventions of civilization, but does not forsake his humanity. So maybe there’s some of that sentiment reflected. Right about when this book came out, Calvino left the Communist party, declaring that it had become something he could no longer participate in. He helps the villagers, fights pirates and bandits, writes books, leads discussions. The Baron in the trees rejects civilization, but does not turn his back. He chooses freedom over conformity, despite the ridicule he must endure, the creature comforts foregone, the strained relationships with everyone, especially the love of his life, Viola. He spurns the aristocracy and his own family. One is that by living in the trees, the young man (of a minor Italian aristocratic family – when his father dies, he inherits the title of Baron), rejects the status quo. Perhaps having the brother intrude from time to time helped keep the story from floating away in pure fantasy.īesides the delightful fantasy of a boy, then man, living in the trees, is there any point to this novel? Two main elements stand out. For much of the book, the brother fades away and the narrator is functionally a 3P anyway. A standard, third-person narrator would seem to have worked better. He claims he is telling what his brother told him, or surmising what must have happened. The story is told by his younger brother, an odd device, because his brother did not accompany the arboreal baron in his adventures so could not, as a practical matter, report them. It’s a charming fantasy, told in anecdotes, with no over-arching plot. He takes part in village life, falls in love, travels with thieves, fights off pirates, takes a lover in Spain, reads books, writes letters, helps with the grape harvest, and leads a revolutionary movement.
![italo calvino baron in the trees italo calvino baron in the trees](https://elysafaithng.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-baron-in-the-tree.jpg)
He meets people, who think him strange, but he is friendly and articulate. In the early chapters we learn how he adapts to arboreal life, hunting food, building shelter, staying clean, dry, and warm. Living the rest of his 50 years in the trees, he learns to travel far and wide in a thickly forested Europe, branch to branch, never touching the ground again. In 1767, a 12-year-old Italian boy climbs a tree and vows never to come down.