Items related to Six Memos for the Next Millennium (The Charles Eliot...

Six Memos for the Next Millennium (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1985-86) - Softcover

 
9780679742371: Six Memos for the Next Millennium (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1985-86)
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
Six Memos for the Millennium is a collection of five lectures Italo Calvino was about to deliver at the time of his death. Here is his legacy to us: the universal values he pinpoints become the watchwords for our appreciation of Calvino himself.

What should be cherished in literature? Calvino devotes one lecture, or memo to the reader, to each of five indispensable qualities: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. A sixth lecture, on consistency, was never committed to paper, and we are left only to ponder the possibilities. With this book, he gives us the most eloquent defense of literature written in the twentieth century—a fitting gift for the next millennium.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Italo Calvino cast his lofty thoughts toward the pending millennium long before the rest of us. Now that the zeitgeist has caught up with him, it seems a good time to revisit his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, an investigation into the literary values that he wished to bequeath to future generations. Calvino, the author of Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, and other postmodern fictional works, was to deliver these five "memos" (there was to be a sixth) as Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1985-86, but he died before doing so. These lectures are dense, rigorous, and seemingly full of contradiction. The first is a paean to lightness (though "light like a bird," as Paul Valéry wrote, "and not like a feather"). Lightness is followed by quickness (without "presum[ing] to deny the pleasures of lingering"), exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. The perfect antidote to writerly laziness.
From the Back Cover:
“The fate of literature and the book in the so-called postindustrial age is being questioned . . . My faith in the future of literature rests on the knowledge that there are things that only literature, with its particular capacities, can give us.” — from Six Memos for the Next Millennium
 
At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Six Memos for the Next Millennium is Calvino’s testament, containing the five lectures he completed. Now in a new translation by poet Geoffrey Brock, these “memos” form a stirring defense of literature and an indispensable guide to Calvino’s own writings. He devotes one lecture each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity, drawing examples from his vast knowledge of myth, folklore, and works both ancient and modern. Readers will be astonished by the prescience of these lectures, which have only gained in relevance as Calvino’s “next millennium” has dawned.
 
Italo Calvino(1923–1985) attained worldwide renown as one of the twentieth century’s greatest storytellers. Born in Cuba, he was raised in San Remo, Italy, and later lived in Turin, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere. Among his many works are Invisible Cities, If on a winter’s night a traveler, The Baron in the Trees, and other novels, as well as numerous collections of fiction, folktales, criticism, and essays. His works have been translated into dozens of languages.

Geoffrey Brock is an award-winning translator and poet whose translations include works of Umberto Eco, Cesare Pavese, and others.
 

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherVintage
  • Publication date1993
  • ISBN 10 0679742379
  • ISBN 13 9780679742371
  • BindingPaperback
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages128
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780544146679: Six Memos for the Next Millennium

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780544146679
Publisher: Mariner Books, 2016
Softcover

  • 9780241275955: Six Memos for the Next Millenium

    Pengui..., 2016
    Softcover

  • 9780674810402: Six Memos for the Next Millennium

    Harvar..., 1988
    Hardcover

  • 9780141189697: Six Memos for the Next Millennium

    Pengui..., 2009
    Softcover

  • 9780099730514: Six Memos for the Next Millennium

    Vintage, 1996
    Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Your Online Bookstore
(Houston, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 0679742379-11-31359826

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 16.49
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Calvino, Italo
Published by Vintage Books (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Soft cover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Sparrow Reads
(Edgewood, NM, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 002692

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 12.50
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0679742379

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 21.51
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0679742379

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 21.46
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0679742379

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 23.88
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0679742379

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 26.77
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.50
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Paperback Quantity: 2
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # VIB0679742379

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 31.63
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0679742379-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 34.36
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Italo Calvino
Published by Vintage (1993)
ISBN 10: 0679742379 ISBN 13: 9780679742371
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
BennettBooksLtd
(LOS ANGELES, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.2. Seller Inventory # Q-0679742379

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 58.07
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.13
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds