Fiction Podcast: Robert Coover Reads Italo Calvino
By The New Yorker
On this month's fiction podcast, Robert Coover reads Italo Calvino's short story "The Daughters of the Moon," which first appeared in The New Yorker in 2009. The story takes place in a mythological New York City where Calvino's shape-shifting narrator, Qfwfq, witnesses the decay and subsequent rejuvenation of the moon. Coover says the story, which is collected in "The Complete Cosmicomics," from Penguin Modern Classics, illustrates Calvino's "tremendous" imagination, but stands out from other stories in the Cosmicomics series because its message, about the consequences of consumerism and corporate greed, is more overt. Here is Qfwfq describing the sight of the "flaky, moldy" moon above the city:
We went out in the crowds, our arms laden with parcels, coming and going from the big department stores that were open day and night, and while we were scanning the neon signs that climbed higher and higher up the skyscrapers and notified us constantly of new products that had been launched, we'd suddenly see it advancing, pale amid those dazzling lights, slow and sick, and we could not get it out of our heads that every new thing, each product that we had just bought, could similarly wear out, deteriorate, fade away, and we would lose our enthusiasm for running around buying things and working like crazy—a loss that was not without consequences for industry and commerce.
In his discussion with fiction editor Deborah Treisman, Coover also talks about the story's erotic overtones, Calvino's diverse influences, and his own interest in creation myths, Bible stories, and folktales, and the contemporary works that draw upon those traditional forms. You can hear Coover's reading of "The Daughters of the Moon," and his discussion with Treisman, by listening above or by downloading the podcast for free from iTunes.
The New Yorker offers a signature blend of news, culture, and the arts. It has been published since February 21, 1925.
More:FictionFiction Podcast
Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter.