''The Castle of Crossed Destinies'' ( it, Il castello dei destini incrociati) is a 1973 novel by Italian writer

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...

Background

The novel is in two parts, each using a different style of tarot deck. The first part was published alone in 1969 as ''Tarocchi: Il mazzo visconteo di Bergamo e New York'' (Tarots: The Visconti Pack in Bergamo and New York). It contains allusions to

Ludovico Ariosto Ludovico Ariosto (; 8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic ''Orlando Furioso'' (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'', describes the ...

's ''

Orlando Furioso ''Orlando furioso'' (; ''The Frenzy of Orlando'', more loosely ''Raging Roland'') is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was no ...

''. The second part, with the header "The Tavern of Crossed Destinies", features the

Tarot of Marseilles The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan befo ...

Plot

The narrative details a meeting among travelers who are inexplicably unable to speak after passing through a forest. The characters in the novel recount their tales via

tarot cards The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots ...

, which are reconstructed by the narrator. The deck scatters at the end of the novel, as do the characters' identities.

Themes

The novel is an exploration of how meaning is created, whether that be written via words (by the author, via the book, since the characters in the book cannot speak to each other), or by images (the tarot cards—considered prophetic by some, and themselves open to many symbolic interpretations). It is, as often in Calvino's works, multilayered, and several levels of interpretations and readings are possible, based on the author–narrator–

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

–

reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

relationship.

References

1973 novels Novels by Italo Calvino Tarot in fiction 20th-century Italian novels {{1970s-novel-stub

Background

Plot

Themes

See also

References