About this title: A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of all human consciousness.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harvest Books
Date Published: 1979-04-16
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: Fair. No names, no marks, no stickers. Has some edge and corner wear. Has minor underlining. Spine is slightly torn. Careful packaging and fast shipping. We recommend EXPEDITED MAIL for even faster delivery! read more
Edition: 1979 reprint.
Binding: paperback
Publisher: New York: Harvest/HBJ
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: 129pp. illus. paperback tall 8vo: near Very Good. The imaginative Italian writer Calvino (1923-85) uses tarot cards to tell a series of short stories. read more
Edition: First Soft Cover Edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: VG. Book is intact but looks like it has been read. INCLUDES THE ORIGINAL NY TIMES BOOK REVIEW FROM 1977. Books we have from Italo Calvino: INVISIBLE CITIES and THE CASTLE OF CROSSED DESTINIES. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace and Company, San Diego
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: Very Good. No Jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 129 pp. Ninth printing thus. Rubbing to the extremities of the covers. The binding is tight and square, and the text is clean. read more
Edition: "C" reprint
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace/ Harvest, New York
Date Published: c1969-1977
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: b/w repros. Near fine, trade paper, pict. black covers. Clean, tight. 129 pgs, ISBN: 0-15-615455-2. Trans: William Weaver. Blurb: John Gardner. read more
Edition: LATER PRINTING
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: HARCOURT BRACE & CO, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: Very Good. FICTION. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 129 PAGES. TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM WEAVER. TAROT CARDS TELL A SERIES OF SHORT, FANTASTIC NARRATIVES. BLACK SOFT COVERS. BOOK IS CLEAN, BRIGHT AND SECURE. read more
Edition: Harvest/HBC Book
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Harcourt, FL.
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: Good. No DJ Issued. Good. No dust jacket as issued. slight edge/cover wear, cover and all pgs. are clean and bright. Text in English, Harvest/HBC Book; Includes Illustrations. 129p. 23cm X 15cm X 1cm.; glossy pictorial softcopy TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM WEAVER. TAROT CARDS TELL A SERIES OF SHORT, FANTASTIC NARRATIVES. read more
Edition: No Edition Stated
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, San Diego, New York, and London
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: Good. No Jacket. Light wear on corners, top and bottom of spine, and edges of front and back cover. Slight wear and color fading on front and back cover. Soft cover. Fiction Italy. Box 338. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780099268055ISBN:0099268051
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harcourt
Date Published: 1979-04-01
ISBN-13:9780156154550ISBN:0156154552
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780156154550. read more
"This is a book I should have loved. A sort of Canterbury Tales meets tarot cards. There are two almost separate books in this one slim volume. In each, a group of travelers gather in a strange place. None of them knows how they arrived. Each is mute and their hair has gone white. The first group of stories takes place in a castle and the second in a tavern.
In order to explain who they are to each other, every guest uses a deck of tarot cards to explain their story. Lovely idea.
In theory. In practice, it fell short for me. Calvino keeps interrupting the tales with other people grabbing at the cards and new cards being turned which are then explained before continuing the story. Most of the stories felt too abbreviated.
The writing is beautiful. The idea is fantastic. The stories needed more continuity within and among themselves."
"I rarely give up on a book and I really tried to get into this one but it was extremely tedious. Several wanderers gather in a mysterious castle and find that they are suddenly mute, and can only communicate their stories with tarot cards. So the whole book is a selection of cards and interpretations. Yawn."
"An intriguing idea; telling stories based on draws of tarot cards. But they're simple stories - 4-5 pages each - so its not much of a feat to wrap one around a draw of the cards, especially given the amazingly generous interpretations of the cards we get here. What does make it clever is the fact that Calvino crosses the paths of the different stories, using the same cards in a matrix, and drawing all the possible paths through it... which I thought was quite cool.
But then he gives up on the idea as too hard, and starts telling known stories (Hamlet, Macbeth, Oedipus) through totally random collections of tarot cards, which don't form straight lines or any obvious patterns in the mesh of cards. Whats hard about that? Yes, the cards have some very common symbols in them. Yes, you can find a tenuous reference to one of those symbols at various points in most stories. So? Like most things to do with tarot, it might be impressive if you could tell the story from the cards, but if you're simply matching cards to the story then any idiot could do it."
"A fairy tale for grown-ups ... I enjoyed the book immensely. The brilliance of the literary experiment outshines the stories themselves in the end, but still; I'd much rather read Calvino's literary experiments than someone else's literary formulas."
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