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The Baron in the Trees

Italo Calvino · 1957 CE · Novel · Italian · Contemporary

At twelve, in the Ligurian summer of 1767, Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò refuses a dish of snails at his father's table, climbs the holm oak in the garden and gives his word never to touch the ground again. He keeps it, hunting, reading Diderot, corresponding with Voltaire and conducting a long courtship of the girl next door, entirely above the surface of the earth. The central panel of Our Ancestors, where Calvino's Enlightenment reading becomes a fable about standing apart in order to take part.

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