Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T13:57:37.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Italo Calvino in Mexico: Food and Lovers, Tourists and Cannibals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Gian-Paolo Biasin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Italo Calvino's “Sotto il sole giaguaro” (“Under the Jaguar Sun”), a story about the sense of taste, is the culmination of his lifelong research on desire; it presents and analyzes all the primary functions of food, from the satisfaction of a biological need to the possibility of transgression, from the narrative sign to the cognitive tool used to outline the problematic relation among self, others, and the world (or among subject, nature, and history). “Sotto il sole giaguaro” deals with the dialectics of logos, sitos, and eros in an extremely original manner, by foregrounding primary images (like the female protagonist's mouth and the jaguar sun of the title) and by combining the narration of a tourist's journey with a love story and an anthropological inquiry into Aztec cannibalism. In this beautiful and challenging text, gastronomy fuses within itself anthropology and eroticism, while the underlying discourse probes the nature of literature. (G-PB)

Type
Special Topic: Literature and the Idea of Europe
Information
PMLA , Volume 108 , Issue 1: Special Topic Literature and the Idea of Europe , January 1993 , pp. 72 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Barth, John “The Literature of Replenishment. Postmodernist Fiction.” The Friday Book: Essays and Other Nonfiction. New York: Putnam, 1984. 193–206.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland Leçon. Paris: Seuil, 1978.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland “Reading Brillat-Savarin.” On Signs. Ed. Blonsky, Marshall. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987. 61–75.Google Scholar
Battistini, Andrea “Ménage à trois: Scienza, arte combinatoria e mosaico della scrittura.” Nuova civiltà delle macchine 5.1 (1987): 11–24.Google Scholar
Burland, C. A Montezuma, signore degli Aztechi. Torino: Einaudi, 1976.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Le città invisibili. Torino: Einaudi, 1972.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Collezione di sabbia. Milano: Garzanti, 1984.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Cosmicomiche vecchie e nuove. Milano: Garzanti, 1984.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Cosmicomics. Trans. Weaver, William. San Diego: Harcourt, 1968.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Difficult Loves. Trans. William Weaver, Archibald Colquhoun, and Wright, Peggy. San Diego: Harcourt, 1984.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo If on a Winter Night a Traveler. Trans. Weaver, William. San Diego: Harcourt, 1981.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Invisible Cities. Trans. Weaver, William. New York: Harcourt, 1974.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Lezioni americane. Sei proposte per il prossimo millennia. Milano: Garzanti, 1988.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Mr. Palomar. Trans. Weaver, William. San Diego: Harcourt, 1985.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Palomar. Torino: Einaudi, 1983.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo The Path to the Nest of Spiders. Trans. Colquhoun, Archibald. New York: Ecco, 1976.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Una pietra sopra. Torino: Einaudi, 1982.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Racconti. Torino: Einaudi, 1959.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo “Sapore sapere.” FMR 4 Jun. 1982: 63–77.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno. Torino: Einaudi, 1947.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore. Torino: Einaudi, 1979.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Trans. Creagh, Patrick. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Sotto il sole giaguaro. Milano: Garzanti, 1986.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo T Zero. Trans. Weaver, William. San Diego: Harcourt, 1969.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo Under the Jaguar Sun. Trans. Weaver, William. San Diego: Harcourt, 1988.Google Scholar
Calvino, Italo The Uses of Literature. Essays. Trans. Creagh, Patrick. San Diego: Harcourt, 1986.Google Scholar
Camporesi, Piero La terra e la luna. Milano: Saggiatore, 1989.Google Scholar
Cannon, JoAnn Postmodern Italian Fiction: The Crisis of Reason in Calvino. Eco. Sciascia. Malerba. London: Associated U Presses, 1989.Google Scholar
Cases, Cesare Patrie lettere. Torino: Einaudi, 1987.Google Scholar
Cecchi, Emilio Messico. Milano: Adelphi, 1985.Google Scholar
Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton, 1975.Google Scholar
D'Ors, Eugenio Lo barroco. Madrid: Aguilar, 1964.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary “Deciphering a Meal.” Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. London: Routledge, 1979.Google Scholar
Duthuit, Georges Le musée inimaginable. Paris: Corti, 1956.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop Anatomy of Criticism. New York: Atheneum, 1970.Google Scholar
Fussell, Paul Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic, 1973.Google Scholar
Girard, René The Scapegoat. Trans. Freccero, Yvonne. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Girard, René Violence and the Sacred. Trans. Gregory, Patrick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Green, André “Cannibalisme: Réalité ou fantasme agi?” Destins du cannibalisme. Spec. issue of Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse 6 (1972): 27–52.Google Scholar
Kilgour, Maggie From Communion to Cannibalism: An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude The Raw and the Cooked. Trans. Weightman, John and Weightman, Doreen. New York: Harper, 1969.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude Les structures élémentaires de la parenté. 2nd ed. The Hague: Mouton, 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marin, Louis Food for Thought. Trans. Hjort, Mette. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Pavese, Cesare Dialoghi con Leucò. Torino: Einaudi, 1947.Google Scholar
Paz, Octavio The Labyrinth of Solitude. Trans. Lysander Kemp, Yara Milos, and Belash, Rachel Phillips. New York: Grove, 1985.Google Scholar
Pouillon, Jean “Manières de table, manières de lit, manières de langage.” Destins du cannibalisme. Spec. issue of Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse 6 (1972): 9–26.Google Scholar
Queneau, Raymond Petite cosmogonie portative. Paris: Gallimard, 1950.Google Scholar
Reeves Sanday, Peggy Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serres, Michel Les cinq sens: Philosophie des corps mâlés. Paris: Grasset, 1985.Google Scholar
Serres, Michel Hermes. Literature, Science, Philosophy. Trans. Harari, Josué and Bell, David. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Sertoli, Giuseppe “Conoscenza e potere. Su Heart of Darkness di Joseph Conrad.” Altri termini 4–5 (1974): 115–11.Google Scholar
Stark, B. R “Kurtz's Intended: The Heart of Heart of Darkness.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 17 (1974): 535–53.Google Scholar
Todorov, Tzvetan The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Trans. Howard, Richard. New York: Harper, 1984.Google Scholar
Visser, Margaret Much Depends on Dinner. Toronto: McClelland, 1987.Google Scholar