“The Spiral” by Italo Calvino is story #26 of 52 from The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989), an anthology my short story club is group reading. Stories are discussed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “The Spiral” first appeared in Le Cosmicomiche, a collection of the author’s stories first published in Italy in 1965. It was later translated and published in English in 1968 as Cosmicomics.
Calvino is growing on me. In fact, after reading “The Spiral” I decided to buy Cosmicomics. I went to Amazon and Audible and listened to the introduction to The Complete Cosmicomics. I was so intrigued that I bought the ebook for $2.99 and the audiobook for an additional $7.49. That volume contains Cosmicomics (12 stories), Time and the Hunter (11 stories), 4 stories from Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories, and 7 newly translated stories, 34 in all.
“The Spiral” continues with the character from “A Sign in Space,” Qfwfq, who reminds me of YHWH. I don’t know if Calvino intended that or not, but these stories feel like another Bible that describes the evolution of matter and life through a coevolving self-awareness. I recently read An Immense World by Ed Yong, a book about umwelt in humans and animals, including mollusks. These two books have great synergy.
Cosmicomics stories are about science. I think it’s especially important to read Martin McLaughlin’s introduction to The Complete Cosmicomics. It’s too long to quote in its entirety, but I believe this should get you interested to maybe spring for the $2.99 Kindle edition.
With “The Spiral” I feel Calvino is trying to write a scientific description of reality using a philosophical conceit. Like McLaughlin said, Calvino thinks realistic fiction was exhausted, so he came up with this new approach.
Qfwfq is like God or Gaia, or one of an infinity of pantheistic gods who is describing the evolution of the universe and life. Although Calvino’s goal is to describe science, it also feels spiritual.
When I was young I couldn’t conceive of God or a beginning. I concluded that reality has always existed. It’s infinite in all directions and dimensions. Nothing can’t exist. Reality is the unfolding of all possible forms of non-existence.
You can listen to “The Spiral” here:
James Wallace Harris, 7/4/23
Classics of Science Fiction 
Glad Calvino is growing on you, Jim! I like the little of his work I’ve read–Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities–and would like to read more. (He apparently wrote a follow-up to Cosmicomics called t zero.)
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T Zero is included in The Complete Cosmicomics. It’s under the English title.
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Many thanks! I only know them as two separate books. I hope the Complete Cosmicomics retained that wonderful Escher artwork on the cover.
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I show the cover on my blog. The Kindle edition has a plain cover.
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Understood–I’m a kindle/e-reader virgin, as it were. I have an old-fashioned attachment to print books.
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Try ABEbooks. You might find a used edition with the cover you want.
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Many thanks, but not to worry—I already have Cosmicomics with the Escher cover, and I’m sure I can find t zero in one of Vancouver’s second-hand bookstores.
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Look for The Complete Cosmicomics because it contains all of t zero and 11 other Cosmicomics stories. Plus it has a great introduction that gives their history and covers Calvino too.
t zero is also called Time and the Hunter.
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Many thanks–I’ll look for it.
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Thanks for reminding me about Le Cosmicomiche. I read the book in Italian almost forty years ago (that’s a hell of a long time ago) and have now discovered that a German paperback edition was published a few years ago. Because it has more than twice as many pages as my Italian edition, it will probably contain the other stories like the English edition. One reason to buy it. Unfortunately, there is no e-book of it.
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