January
26, 2022
Grady Harp
'Gossipers need to feed their addictions'
Félix Calvino deserves a much wider audience here
in the United States. His novel ALFONSO proved his mettle for extending a
thought into a full-length novel. Yet his first collection of short stories,
gathered under the title A HATFUL OF CHERRIES, were piquant brief morsels that
ranged from a few pages to extended stories and every story managed to paint
imagery and place and character so clearly with the most economical style that
each appears like a flashback of thought in every reader's memory bank.
Furthering his appreciation for the art of short stories, he has published SO
MUCH SMOKE, and now YOUNG LOVE & OTHER STORIES, proving he is a master
craftsman!
Calvino was born in Galicia and spent his childhood
on a farm not unlike those scenes he so frequently recalls in these stories.
Under the reign of General Franco, Calvino fled to England to study and work
and eventually migrated to Australia where he currently lives and writes his magical
prose. From these various regions Calvino gathers the fodder for his tales -
stories that take place in Spain and in Australia with settings that range from
dealing with the earth as a child to discovering love as a youth to
encountering the realities of small community prejudices to simply celebrating
the aspects of the very young to the very aged characters he describes so well.
The stories in this collection are Sunday Lunch, Young Love, Knick-knacks,
Abel’s Journey, The Beehives, and Shopping Trip. Calvino's writing style is the
opposite of florid. With a few brief sentences on a few pages he is able to
bring the reader into the focal point of his stories that usually take a quiet
twist at the end, a technique that makes reading a collection of short stories
more like reading a full length novel, so engrossed is the reader in his
ability to capture attention and imagination. Example, in the story ‘Sunday
Lunch’ he writes ‘Manuel stood in the doorway of the kitchen and asked, “what
are you cooking that smells so good?” “Stewed partridge with herbs and new
potatoes.” Amadeo answered, without looking up from the kitchen bench where he
was chopping parsley with a large knife. “Have you seen Avelina?” “I saw her a
few days ago. She said she was making a cake to mark the occasion” “What
occasion?” ‘She didn’t say.” Manual, Amadeo and Avelina were the three
remaining inhabitants of the remote village of Carballo. The men were both
seventy-seven, fragile, lean, and of average height…Avelina was seven years younger,
short and slim…Their relationship, although they had lived and shared in all
aspects of the village public life, had never been a close one.’ – We then
discover the destiny of this tale as the core of ‘interconnected stories that
call up the ghosts of the past half-century for the three survivors of a
lively, colourful world that had no notion of how soon it was to disappear.’
Some astute publisher should capture the talents of this Spanish Australian
writer. He deserves center stage in the arena of authors who have mastered the
art of writing short stories. Very highly recommended. Grady Harp, January 22
https://www.amazon.com/Young-Other-Stories-F%C3%A9lix-Calvino/dp/192266927X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34MCHF8NJAK2J&keywords=young+love+%26+other+stories+by+felix+calvino&qid=1643236872&sprefix=young+love+%26+o