SOURCE: “Calvino's Palomar and Deconstruction: Similarities and Differences,” in Italian Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 115, Winter-Spring, 1989, pp. 81–91.

In the following essay, Devivo utilizes Calvino's “Lettura di un'onda” in order to explore the various perspectives of deconstructed reality in the novel Palomar.

Deconstruction attempts to resist the totalizing and totalitarian tendencies of criticism. It attempts to resist its own tendencies to come to rest in some sense of mastery over the work.

J. H. Miller, “The Critic as Host,” in De-construction and Criticism, (New York: Continuum, 1979), p. 252.

Ogni progetto storico “forte,” che oppone al modello esistente un modello altrettanto determinato, va incontro al rischio di fondare a propria volta un ordine cogente, autoritario come è autoritaria ogni presenza.

Gianni Vattimo, in Che cosa fanno oggi i filosofi? (Milano: Bompiani, 1982), p. 196.

From the ancient view that literary fictions illustrate general truth, we moved to the view that literary fictions illustrate fictions. But having...