The Baron in the Trees
by Italo Calvino
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Book Summary Information
Author: Italo CalvinoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1977-03-28
ISBN: 0156106809
Number of pages: 228
Publisher: Harvest Books
Book Reviews of The Baron in the Trees
Book Review: No man is an island
Summary: 4 Stars
Most young boys, presented with a plateful of boiled snails for dinner and forced to eat them, might well remove themselves from the dining room--just as Cosimo takes to the trees as a rebellion against the screwball whims of his family. After this memorable opening, however, any pretense of realism ends, because for the rest of his life Cosimo never touches solid ground again.
The comedy of Cosimo's family is narrated by his younger brother, Biagio, who serves as the "grounded" foil to the folly of his parents and siblings. The boys' father is a bore "dominated by conflicting ideas" whose meek personality pales when set against the supremacy of the household's womenfolk. Their mother, the Generalessa, the daughter of the commander of the Holy Roman Empire's troops, has turned her household into a military camp, where even pieces of embroidery resemble maps "showing the disposition of battles in the Wars of Succession." Cosimo's tough-as-nails sister, Battista, doubles as the cook, serving up basted baby porcupines and rats' liver pate and spending "nights wandering the house in search of mice, holding a candelabra, with a musket under her arm."
Although heir to this substantial, if quirkily managed, estate on earth, Cosimo establishes his own kingdom in the trees for the duration of the Age of Enlightenment, and he acquires first a local fame as a judicious protector (guarding against vagabond pirates and adolescent riffraff) and then a continental notoriety as a cerebral wit. A bibliophile even in his skyward perch, Cosimo corresponds with Diderot, to whom he posits a constitution for the ideal state, a Republic of Arborea. (Of course, once all of humanity had taken to the trees, Cosimo would necessarily return to his solitary life on the now-deserted land.) Being not exactly of the world permits him the distance "to see the earth properly." ("Once it was only Nature that produced living phenomena," says a bemused Voltaire. "Now `tis Reason.") Even Napoleon, on his way to Milan to be crowned, pays a visit to this modern-day Simon Stock.
One of Calvino's more popular (and most accessible) novels, the fairy-tale premise of "The Baron in the Trees" has occasionally been criticized for excessive cuteness, its farcical storyline often overpowering both its literary allusions and the seemingly haphazard references to seventeenth-century philosophy. Behind the folly, however, is a Donne-inspired morality tale that argues ad absurdum that there is no escaping the world; even from the air, Cosimo is as much a part of society as the most animated man-about-town on the ground.
Summary of The Baron in the Trees
Cosimo, a young eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, rebels by climbing into the trees to remain there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence and even has love affairs. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun.
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