Waste Books Ep. 16 - The Baron in the Trees

Join Jordan, Cooper, and Eric as they tackle this fanciful tale of escape & failure in the latest episode of Waste Books!

Overview

Italo Calvino is famous for his systematic post-modern works, but his earlier novel The Baron in the Trees tells a simpler story than the purposefully cryptic works he’s more famous for. Historical but accessible in its clarity, this story follows an adolescent Cosimo, the son of a baron administering a small territory as he defies the provincial attitudes of his community and ascends into the trees forswearing to never descend. His younger brother Biagio narrates from the sidelines and recounts for his lucky readers the life and times of a boy turned man and doggedly remains independent throughout the course of the Enlightenment and the sweeping democracy that follows. 

Cosimo’s development permits him to see the world in ways orthodoxy take for granted: his food, clothes, bathing, (ahem) waste all have to be taken care of without ever having to touch the ground that seems to only control him. As he develops this system of utility, he also develops a system of values that differ from the stodgy monarchy governing Europe. His Rousseauian attitude guides him to see models of nature as more sustainable and fulfilling than the aristocratic belief that nobility is a birthright. Rather than seeing the past as a portent of the future, Cosimo makes the radical step to climb into the impossible and like a paragon of his beliefs, uncovers a new sense of the future that presages the independence of his native Italy to come - along with Western Europe and the world as a whole.

The story is simple and the language earthy, but the allegorical quality of Baron asks questions of what’s at stake when we decide to push back at what’s given us, and also what we lose when we insist on ideas that inevitably compromise our relationship to other people that don’t fit into them. For those interested in Calvino’s output, Baron is the place to start. For those looking for a story about escape with swashbuckling yarns, amorous escapades, philosophical fables, fantastical odysseys and - well you get the idea - pick it up!

Show Notes

Podcast edited by Phillip Griffin. Graphic by Cooper Malin. Intro music by Brian Nichols.

End music by FUULS, with their new song "Ronin," off their EP About-Face, which you can (and should) check out wherever you get music.

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