The Cloven Viscount
A Genoese viscount rides into his first battle against the Turks, walks straight at a cannon, and is carried home as a single vertical half of a man, all right side. The half that returns is exquisitely cruel, halving everything it meets — mushrooms, frogs, pears — until the other half turns up in the same country, unbearably good. Calvino's first fable, told by the viscount's boy nephew and later collected as the opening panel of his Our Ancestors trilogy.
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Attributes
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Symbol / motif
Mode / tone
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 52% · 12 shared
- 48% · 12 shared
- 47% · 10 shared
- 46% · 12 shared
- 43% · 11 shared
- 43% · 11 shared