Martin McLaughlin

Italo Calvino

'The crucial novel of Calvino' s early years is his first, The Path to the Spiders' Nests, Published in 1947 when he was 24, it draws heavily on his experiences in the war ... Like all his books, it steers a perfect course between innocent playfulness and the complex depths of thought. The story is told through the eyes of Pin, a barely adolescent boy, for whom the decision to fight with the partisans or with the black-shirts is not far removed from a choice between one street gang or another. He is a brilliant creation; a streetwise urchin who understands very well what is going on when his elder sister lets German soldiers into her bedroom, but also a boy who, almost against his will, is hanging on to his innocence and naivety. The narrative turns around a gun with Pin has stolen from one of his sister's German clients, and buried in the place where spiders build their nests' Mail on Sunday

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