Intelligent, well constructed, characters are done well, whilst being easy to read. It has some great points without being what some might consider stIntelligent, well constructed, characters are done well, whilst being easy to read. It has some great points without being what some might consider stuffy in any way.
I mean, come on, it's Calvino? How could it not be good? But the construct of this is definitely on the easier to keep reading side of things, which might be a point of interest to some readers approaching this.
Doesn't stop at a `happy ending', but keeps going as often happens in life passed them (follows the entire life of the baron). Get to see the impact of `pride' and anger in a relationship, combined with not understanding each other, in so doing it sort of plays between 'stubbornness' that can be good and the 'stubbornness' that can be bad (though never actually expressly draws a line with these things). I could go on - but I won't because we both have stuff we want to do, and for you quite possibly that might include reading this book. And it was all in the setting and in a construction of something amusingly 'ridiculous'. It's a great book.
Kids would probably like it. Someone mentioned worthy of teaching in schools, which I concur with - it would also be good to get under the skin of those parents who don't like books that exhibit 'abberant' behaviour, which is surely all the more reason to do it (until it gets removed from some US schools for that reason -- yes that's sadly a thing). And all the while potentially showing them more to shame, because this particular character exhibiting 'aberrant' behaviour is a great person in the community and a study bug -- which possibly makes it even more `dangerous'. The norm is not the only way, it screams.
A few random quotes/things I highlighted...
"People in love want happiness, not pain!" "People in love want only love, even at the cost of pain."
"...still at the age when the desire to tell stories makes one want to live more...."
"...association renders men stronger and brings out each person's gifts, and gives a joy which is rarely to be had be keeping to oneself, the joy of realising how many honest decent capable people there are for whom it is worth giving one's best (whilst living just for oneself very often the opposite happens, of seeing people's other side, the side which makes one keep one's hand always on the hilt of the sword)."
"It was the love which the hunter has for living things, and which he can only express by aiming his gun at them..."
"It was he, perhaps the poorest of them and certainly the least important of them back home, who told them what they should be suffering and hoping"
"...the more determined he was to hide away in his den of branches, the more he felt the need to create links with the human race." This, quite likely because his being in the tree-tops was his way of expressing and being himself. And to express and be yourself, one sometimes is taken by the fancy of having it be seen or for it to be of some good to others. And I can say this partly because of the last bit I highlighted...
"Only by being frankly himself as he was till his death could he give something to all men."
At times gratingly simplistic, and at times there are things that I don't fully agree with, it says 'God' a little too much and there are parts that 'At times gratingly simplistic, and at times there are things that I don't fully agree with, it says 'God' a little too much and there are parts that 'Soul of the world' is mentioned so much it makes ones eyes roll (or mine anyway). But it's a simple story about hope and endeavour of a genuine sort. it tries to introduce elements with parallels that one might encounter in real life to help give an option of dealing with them so that you might continue on with your `genuine endeavour', including if certain arising motivations begin to contradict that `genuine endeavour' which was ignited by a dream -- a thing in which one would see ones sense of purpose. It is not simply a thing suggesting you should drop everything and go for absolutely any flitting desire that comes along, as some reviewers seem to have interpreted it as.
The `gratingly simplistic' comes in where it brushes over ignoring or not seeing a few holes in its explanation or construct that most people who are enamoured with the construct and idea and sentiment as it is expressed in previous pages probably won't see or be afflicted by.
I think one needs to read this as a fantasy book, despite the fact that it uses Earthly geographical places. Then one can forgive a little it's constructs. It might well have been less grating if it did not use Earth based religions etc but were entirely fantasy, but it probably also wouldn't have appealed to a lot of people that it has appealed to if the writer had done that.
Another reviewer suggested that it seems to comfort the comfortable and disturb the disturbed (rather than as the phrase usually goes... comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable), which is an interesting observation and probably has some degree of truth to it.
It is not a self-help book - though it seems to grate on people who despise them, judging by the reviews (I've never read any to despise them, but nor have I sort them out either). It is not `anti-feminist' -- the protagonist and the other main characters going after stuff or that have gone after stuff are male, but the female character present does also have a dream, that just so happens gets realised by not having to go anywhere. I chose this to not be representative of what the writer considers apt or always the case for females - i.e. that they didn't necessarily have to go far (though arguably not having to go far in a way can seem a lot more sensible(!), and make things more readily attainable(!)). Though, the book regarding characters that don't follow their dreams - ultimately choose not to - are also male, so I can understand why some might get that feeling from it.
Spoiler (ish)-- an interesting consequence, is that if he had not gone after his dream in the first place, the female character, then would not have realised hers. Domino effect. ...more
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