Italo Calvino:
The garden of the stubborn cats
The city of the cats and the city of the people lie one within the other, but they are not the same city. Only few cats remember the times when there was no difference: the streets and the squares of the people were also streets and squares of the cats, and the lawns, the courtyards, the balconies and the fountains: one could live in a wide and various space. But, already for many generations now, the domestic felines are prisoners of an unlivable city: the streets are uninterruptedly raced by the deadly traffic of the cat-crushing automobiles; in every square meter of ground where a garden or a clear area or the remnants of an old demolition were opened, now tower apartment buildings and shiny new skyscrapers; each sidewalk is crowded by parked automobiles; the courtyards are - one by one - paved and transformed in garages, cinemas, warehouses or offices. And where there used to be a plateau of low roofs, arches, turrets, water tanks, balconies, skylights, tin canopies… [more] |
Italo Calvino:
II giardino dei gatti ostinati
La città dei gatti e la città degli uomini stanno l’una dentro l’altra, ma non sono la medesima città. Pochi gatti ricordano il tempo in cui non c’era differenza: le strade e le piazze degli uomini erano anche strade e piazze dei gatti, e i prati, e i cortili, e i balconi, e le fontane: si viveva in uno spazio largo e vario. Ma già ormai da più generazioni i felini domestici sono prigionieri di una città inabitabile: le vie ininterrottamente sono corse dal traffico mortale delle macchine schiacciagatti; in ogni metro quadrato di terreno dove s’apriva un giardino o un’area sgombra o i ruderi d’una vecchia demolizione ora torreggiano condomini, caseggiati popolari, grattacieli nuovi fiammanti; ogni andito è stipato dalle auto in parcheggio; i cortili a uno a uno vengono ricoperti d’una soletta e trasformati in garages o in cinema o in depositi-merci o in officine. E dove s’estendeva un altopiano ondeggiante di tetti bassi, cimase, altane, serbatoi d’acqua, balconi, lucernari, tettoie di lamiera… [more] |
As promised, a translation into English of the original Italian version of the 19th story from Marcovaldo is due. I chose The garden of the stubborn cats not for its cat topic :D (I might be fooling myself here), but for being the best story to oppose men to non-human personality on the stage of the big city. One can find both the original Italian version (if one has a taste for that language), and the translation, below.
RazvanM said,
July 10, 2006 @ 7:49 am
What a marvelous story! :-) Now I can go to bed. ;-)