Italo Calvino

It is Calvino’s first novel. The protagonist is a young boy, Pin, who undergoes an experience that makes him grow up rapidly. The setting is the Ligurian Riviera during the partisan war. Pin lives with his sister, who works as a prostitute and collaborates with the Germans. The boy frequents the tavern and keeps company with the adults, who talk about women and drink wine. The men at the tavern convince Pin to steal a pistol from a German who frequents his sister. The boy hides the pistol near the burrows that he imagines spiders build. He is imprisoned, escapes, and joins the partisans, where he continually witnesses the affairs of adults: violence, betrayal, love, lies. He flees the partisans and encounters one of them, Cousin, who once took him by the hand when Pin was alone and abandoned. He trusts him and reveals where his sister lives. In reality, Cousin wants to know so he can go and kill her. Pin is betrayed once again and finds himself alone, abandoned by all. Despite its apparent realism, it is a “fantastic” novel. The real story is that of childhood and its encounter with the adult world. Pin talks like a grown-up, but he is still a child, searching for affection and friendship. Yet in truth, he finds it only in the landscape, in the spiders’ nests, in a fantastic world.