by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark (1995)
* * (Okay) Fable
Luigi joined the army believing he’d be able to kill Alberto, an enemy of his.
The problem with fables, or stories with morals, is that they can often come off sounding preachy. This story doesn’t quite go that far, but it comes close. There isn’t a lot of story here, just a few awkward sounding sentences strung together to hammer home a point about the reason we fight wars. In search of the one man he truly wants to kill, Luigi kills many other “innocent” people. For this killing he is awarded medal upon medal. When the war is over – his Alberto never found – it is his conscience he must reconcile. The reasons we fight are often our own, and it is those reasons we have to live and battle with once the war has ended. It’s not a terrible message; it’s just not well expressed in this brief tale.
No comments:
Post a Comment