Mr. Palomar Analysis - eNotes.com

Mr. Palomar (published in Italy in 1983 as Palomar) joins an ample body of work by the late Italo Calvino, the best-known author of Italian fiction in the twentieth century. Calvino’s works, both short stories and novels, seem to run in two streams or extremes. On the one hand, he is known as a masterful storyteller, as is suggested by his popular Italian Folktales (1956). On the other, he has attained even more fame as an innovator of and experimenter with fictional form (see, for example If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, 1979). While it may seem contradictory to acclaim an author as both a grand storyteller and as one who shuns traditional narrative to focus on form, both extremes work for Calvino, perhaps because of his clear devotion to writing and to language. The fact that so many of Calvino’s works have been translated into English, as well as into many other languages, attests the universal appeal of his writing. Mr. Palomar should prove equally successful. As to which stream

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