[Calvino in Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno] creates two noncommunicating levels: the spontaneity of the politically naïve partisans; and the almost cynical calculations of Kim [Calvino's mouthpiece] and of the author himself, who, in their different roles, ordain the ordinary people's destinies for them, impersonating 'History'. The politicized intellectual remains in charge, and the novel remains a picaresque study of 'low life' and adventure seen from above….

Nevertheless, the adventure, the freedom and the comradeship of life in the Resistance stand in qualitative contrast to the constraints of 'normal' social living. This is where play becomes Calvino's most positive, even (unintentionally) revolutionary element. But play appears here as a product of his particular artistic sense, and not of his political consciousness, though Calvino discovers play through life with the Resistance.

This spontaneity in his play is both a strength and a weakness. It accounts for the...