Whoever wants to see the world clearly should keep the necessary distance from it
I have seen another saying: "There is Borges in the south and Calvino in the north". Borges's style, trying to exhaust the limits of imagination, likes to use as concise a page as possible, cloaked in mysticism, casually posing with an IQ crush, teasing and even toying with the reader. In contrast, Calvino is more approachable. He has always been committed to exploring the infinite possibilities of the art of fiction, and he hides the complex intentions of the imagination in stories and fairy tales in an elegant way, bright and warm, and extremely profound.
Everyone has the right to have, at a young age, a lyrical legend that perfectly echoes his young body and clear soul. It must be romantic, emotionally rich, it must be a blue exuberant flame, dazzling but not scorching. Calvino, an Italian man full of fairy tales, when he stood, perhaps feeling the inspiration of the lost youth, suddenly began to recount the stories of his ancestors in his mind. Thus came the "Our Ancestors" trilogy, and "The Baron in the Tree" is the finale of this trilogy.
The story begins with a snail. When a sister whose love was resisted began to prank at the dinner table, opposing the fat and greasy snail at every meal became a resolute battle in the heart of a child. The twelve-year-old little baron pushed aside the plate, ran into the garden, and climbed a tree. But unlike the usual child's wayward rebellion, Calvino allows our protagonist to never return to the ground and begin a life on the tree. In the trees, you can look at the mountains and rivers in the distance, and you can also look at the ground. In the trees, you can listen to the chirping of nature and the noise of the ground.
Therefore, when the stubborn little boy occupies the kingdom of the tree in a rebellious posture, he begins to experience the beauty of this "in the tree". He could climb to the once forbidden place to observe the beautiful wooded garden of his neighbor's house, and he could secretly observe the angry faces of his parents and the attention they secretly sent. He can see all the fantasies of the distance, and he can direct the life under his feet. So, when the rebellious posture grows at the same time as the wonderful experience, he chooses to never compromise and live above the earthly life.
Day after day, like the growth of a tree, he becomes more and more one with nature, and never forgets human language, culture and worldly feelings. He survived and grew up in his treetop kingdom, encountered ignorant love, read and wrote, corresponded with the world's most famous people, used the friendship generated in books to make the robbers gentle, defeated wolves, became a hero for the people, and even commanded the war, gaining napoleon's respect. We can imagine that as the years go by, his gaze at the branches becomes more profound, his breathing under the moon becomes more tranquil, his mind wandering among the books becomes deeper, what he does from above is more meaningful, and his life is lonely and wonderful.
Cosimo never came down from a tree in his lifetime, and his rebellious determination was astounding. However, the moderation of his rebellious style and the thoroughness of his rebelliousness are in stark contrast. The outwardly rebellious Cosimo is actually a very rule-abiding person. Living in the tree is unruly, there is no code of conduct to be observed, and the shackles of freedom have been thrown under the tree, but in the daily trivialities of life, he has always adhered to the rules commonly known as the world under the tree, and he maintains respect for others and maintains his own state of civilization.
Calvino sets the story in the eighteenth century, when the humanistic spirit continues, and all imagination becomes more thorough, bold, and complete. "Back then, no matter where we went, we could always see branches and leaves above our heads and under the blue sky." In that era, Calvino's romantic fantasies could grow throughout the world like the roots of a big tree, and it seemed that the love of plants and the nostalgia for the space games of childhood took root in his mind.
The tree is not too far from the tree, and Calvino does not advocate being far away from society, just as Aristotle believed that happiness is not an intrinsic tendency to carry out certain actions, but a way of acting that creates psychological tendencies, in which the value of the individual can be played to a greater extent, and in order to have a richer emotional experience, that is, the completeness of the soul level. "Have the spirit of being born and do the cause of joining the WTO." I think that's what Calvino was trying to say.
To live in a tree requires both physical and mental preparation: one must have the ability to support oneself, to live independently, and to endure loneliness and resist temptation. And if you want to plant a tree that is big enough to live, every inch of its height must be watered by the fountain of knowledge.
Cosimo's epitaph is engraved with the following words: "Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo – living in trees – always loving the earth – rises into the sky." "It's the best evaluation of his life.
The Baron in the Tree
Author: [Italian] Italo Calvino
Publisher: Yilin Publishing House
Original name: Il barone rampante
Translator: Wu Zhengyi
ISBN: 9787544778008
Producer - Wang Bo Editor-in-Chief - Liu Aiping
Chief Executive Officer │ Wang Mudao Chief Reporter - Leshui
Edited by Fang Hua, Cao Xinyu, Wang Yizhu
Visual Director - Du Fang Video Producer - Li Xiaojiao Design - Liu Yao Li Xinyu
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