His characters look at the world with a puzzled innocence and reinvent what they do not understand. In his best work, Calvino, who died just weeks ago, brought out an image of manвЂ™s existence as both estranged and magical. вЂњWe all turn in our hands an old empty tire through which we try to reach some final meaning, which words cannot achieve.вЂќ Did Italo Calvino, through PalomarвЂ™s eyes, see himself in the white gorilla and his tire? The gorilla clutches a tire, and Palomar sees in it вЂњwhat for man is the search for an escape from the dismay of living-investing oneself in things, recognizing oneself in signs, transforming the world into a collection of symbols.вЂќ Later he reflects: Its gaze вЂњexpresses all the resignation at being the way he is, sole exemplar in the world of a form not chosen, not loved, all the effort of bearing his own singularity, and the suffering at occupying space and time with his presence so cumbersome and evident.вЂќ The teacher restricts himself to naming the objects and, as if to ward off questions, saying over and over again: вЂњWe donвЂ™t know what it means.вЂќ There may be more truth, Palomar reflects, in this untutored refusal to speculate about what is gone than in the entire corpus of archaeological and anthropological theory.ДЄt the Barcelona Zoo, he watches the albino gorilla. A Mexican friend delivers a subtle and sophisticated account of what the Mayans were like, but PalomarвЂ™s attention is drawn to a rural schoolteacher shepherding his charges around the ruins. Palomar visits zoos, a Japanese shrine and the Mayan ruins at Tula. The planets take on moral characters: Jupiter is classical and stolid, Saturn is exciting, and as for Mars, вЂњit is a more perplexed planet than it appears to the naked eye.вЂќ He is the attentive host at a party whose guests speak a language he doesnвЂ™t understand.Д«ecause of his name he has a certain influence in astronomy circles, and gets the loan of a telescope. The moon should be looked at in the afternoon, when it is faint and вЂњwhen it most needs attention since its existence is still in doubt.вЂќ He rushes around, perpetually behind in his task of witnessing things so that they can be. With the ghost of Bishop Berkeley chilly on his heels, Palomar is not certain about his responsibility to the universe. What are their two notes saying or are the notes simply punctuation, with the message coming in the pauses between them? Blackbirds sing in his garden, and he wonders whether he should join in.

But it is still unsatisfactory and so he returns a third time-at which point, the indignant woman gets up and walks off.Дoubt propels Palomar through his days and sometimes as far afield as Paris, Barcelona and Kyoto.

This time he takes a quick, deferential peek and looks away. So he walks back again, this time taking the woman in with the same unwavering gaze he directs at the sand and the water.Д«ut this reduces the human to the level of an object, he reflects. вЂњI create a mental brassiere suspended between my eyes and that bosom,вЂќ he scolds himself. Palomar politely averts his eyes then he worries about being reactionary. Palomar goes off along the beach, tense and nervous as when he came, and even more unsure about everything.вЂќД«ut this is nothing compared to walking past a sunbather who has taken off the top of her bathing suit. But how do you look at a single wave? Where does it separate from the one behind it? How far down the beach is it the same wave? вЂњMr. He goes to the seaside and decides to look at a wave. Palomar finds a distressing puzzlement in the smallest events. Like the bearded man who got no sleep after somebody asked him whether he slept with his whiskers on top of the sheet or underneath, Mr.

Mr palomar italo calvino