When I read them as a kid I too was struck by the similarities in story structure some of the tales shared with other folktale anthologies, which Calvino dwells upon, (I didn’t read introductions or prefaces in my youth) but what these stories really have got going for them is their imagery. Reading the introduction is a must, and Calvino’s notes in the back soberly describe what he cut out or changed. While one may find this remarkable, strengthening the internal consistency of these fables makes this anthology readable, entertaining, and in equal parts serious and amusing.

Neil- Well certainly, in fact I wrote about other books by Calvino last year …
http://enricocasarosa.com/wordpress.1/2007/08/14/books/
I love the Cosmicomics and pretty much all his other novels and short stories.
Though it took me a while to get to that, in Italy we had to read Calvino in school, so as you can imagine he wasn’t immediately appreciated.

But these fables are really fun and in many ways they share a certain sensibility with Calvino’s novels and short stories.
Also his editing job hasn’t been a superficial one on these fables: in the captivating preface Calvino explains his method and how he had to rewrite some of these tales almost completely, while some others he had to translate from tight regional dialect to a more “intellegible italian slang” …
so a long explanation to just say that you get quite a bit of his hand in this collection of italian fables.

e