In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures
In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bisected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. When the two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, there’s no telling the lengths each will go to win.
Now available in an independent volume for the first time, this deliciously bizarre novella is Calvino at his most devious and winning.
In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures.
ITALO CALVINO's superb storytelling gifts earned him international renown and a reputation as "one of the world's best fabulists" (New York Times Book Review). At the time of his death, in 1985, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer.
1
There was a war on against the Turks. My uncle, the Viscount Medardo of Terralba, was riding towards the Christian camp across the plain of Bohemia, followed by a squire called Kurt. Storks were flying low, in white flocks, through the thick, still air.
“Why all the storks?” Medardo asked Kurt. “Where are they flying?”
My uncle was a new arrival, just enrolled to please ducal neighbors involved in that war. After fitting himself out with a horse and squire at the last castle in Christian hands, he was now on his way to report at Imperial headquarters.
“They’re flying to the battlefields,” said the squire glumly. “They’ll be with us all the way.”
The Viscount Medardo had heard that in those parts a flight of storlÖ
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