SYNOPSIS

Preface, Foreword, and “Lightness” from Six Memos for the Next Millenium by Italo Calvino

In 1985, Italo Calvino began to write Six Memos for the next Millenium, a series of lectures. Calvino intended to elucidate qualities of literature which he felt were most compelling, and to contextualize them for the new millenium. On the eve of his departure to give the lectures, Calvino passed away suddenly. He had finished writing five of the lectures: “Lightness”, “Quickness”, “Exactitude”, “Visibility”, and “Multiplicity”. The unwritten sixth lecture was to be “Continuity”.

In his first lecture, Calvino advocates the virtues of lightness. He is careful to state that weight, too, has value, and that only through knowing heaviness can one appreciate lightness. He discusses his own process of removing weight from people and cities, from narrative structure and even from language. Calvino identifies the necessity of lightness in opposition to what he calls the “slow petrification,” the weight of the world. Calvino’s references range from the story of Perseus and Medusa in Greek mythology, the writings of Italian poet Eugenio Montale, and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Calvino further examines the emphasis in various scientific disciplines on the minute matter of the world, lightness in language, and lightness as a response to the weight of living.