Calvino’s Visibility

Calvino describes visibility as the ability of an author to describe an event, character, or setting so that a clear, distinct, vivid visual image is created in the mind of the reader.  This is achieved one of two ways: 1) the word or words used to describe the image is what the author focuses on, thus evoking a vivid image, or 2) visibility is achieved by the author concentrating on the visual image, and then eventually arriving at which word or words to best describe the image.

My experience with literature that has made me aware of visibility is my experience reading Abarat by Clive Barker.  The images of his world – the Abarat – that he creates with his story have always been so clear in my mind, and as a result I feel like I have been to the islands in the Abarat archipelago.  Barker also has hundreds of paintings illuminating the text of the novel.  One wonders whether he drew the paintings first and then was able to describe them so vividly, or if he described a character first, visualized the image, and

Christopher Carrion, one of my favorite paintings in the novel

then painted it.  This is one of the most fun and beautiful books I have ever read because of the interaction of the language and paintings, and the story is fantastic too!  It will always be one of my favorites.

Calvino’s Quickness

My interpretation of Calvino’s definition of quickness is basically the most effective and economical way of telling whatever story you are telling.  This doesn’t necessarily mean the fastest way of telling the story, and relative periods of time have to be taken into consideration (the period of time over which the story takes place versus the period of time over which the story is told).  There are certain elements authors use in telling their stories to help tell them effectively and economically, so the quality of quickness is achieved.  An example of this, Calvino points out, is using both a narrative and verbal link to hold a chain of events together, and stressing repetition so the reader anticipates the repeated situation or phrase.

Grounding Calvino’s definition of quickness in my eperience with print literature, I find this quality evident in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.  Burnett’s 1911 novel is about an orphaned girl who is sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire, England.  During her time at her uncle’s manor, she, her sickly cousin, and another local boy discover a hidden garden in the manor’s yard and it both physically and emotionally heals the characters in the novel.  The garden without a doubt serves as the narrative link, connecting the progress of each character and continuously bringing the characters together.  There are several verbal links as well throughout the novel.  The garden is constantly described as “brightening” the characters, “reviving” them, etc.  What the garden is described as doing for the characters is a verbal link.  Also, there are words that describe each character’s personality throughout the book as well.  Mary is repeatedly described as plain and surly, but is described less so as the book progresses and the garden transforms her.  The reader looks forward to repeated visits with Dickon, the boy Mary meets, and their repeated trips to the garden.

Mary and Dickon