The Sub-Editor - Intervention (2)

INTERVENTION (2)

'At certain moments, I felt that the entire world was turning into stone: a slow petrification, more or less advanced depending on people and places but one that spared no aspect of life. It was as if no one could escape the inexorable stare of Medusa.' (Calvino, 1992, 4)

Thus describes Italo Calvino the gulf between 'the facts of life that should have been my raw materials and the quick light touch I wanted for my writing'.

He continues: 

'Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world - qualities that stick to writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them'. (Calvino, 1992, 4)

For Calvino, 'lightness' is the quality to which one should aspire. Not lightweight, but lightness: in contrast to the 'vitality of the times - noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring'. (Calvino, 1992, 12)

For Calvino, lightness must be sharp, a sharp, bright light trained on the truth but without precluding humour:

'Lightness for me goes with precision and determination, not with vagueness and the haphazard'. (Calvino, 1992, 16)

A gulf, a chasm, separates the way our character feels from the words he can summon to describe his situation. He aims for a lightness of touch, but Medusa's spell is working well and he is fast becoming petrified.


References:
Italo Calvino, 1992, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, London: Jonathan Cape