SOURCE: “The Speculating Intellectual at the Crossroads: Four Novellas,” in Understanding Italo Calvino, University of South Carolina Press, 1993, pp. 68–88.

In the following essay, Weiss investigates Calvino's treatment of the individual and society in The Argentine Ant, A Plunge into Real Estate, Smog, and The Watcher.

One could say that in Italy being an intellectual is regarded as something damaging, as an unredeeming negative condition.¹

What Calvino's long stories or novelettes—La formica argentina, 1952 (The Argentine Ant), La speculazione edilizia, 1957 (A Plunge into Real Estate), La nuvola di smog, 1958 (Smog), and La giornata d'uno scrutatore, 1963 (The Watcher) have in common is the plight of the rational, progressive, and committed individual in contemporary Italian society, undergoing rapid and radical transformation due to political, industrial, and economic pressures. What is the role of such an individual, and can he safeguard his intellectual integrity, his freedom of thought and action, if he...