13: Literary Speculation

The Aquatic Uncle and Literary Distinctions

For this section in class we read Italo Calvino’s The Aquatic Uncle it tells a funny an quirky evolutionary tale of aquatic sea creatures making the evolutionary progression to land. We follow our main character/creature Qfwfq as he tells us about the moment when he, along with other creatures, first crawled out of the seas and began life on land. However, his stubborn great-uncle, N'ba N'ga, chose to remain underwater. Qfwfq being embarrassed to have a great-uncle who is a fish is embrrased to show him to his fiancé. Things get worse when Lll his fiancée begins admiring the old fellow's determination to cling to his old ways. Abandoning Qfwfq, she dives back into the sea. The love of Lll and the aquatic uncle serves as a defiant statement that things don't always get better when they change. It was great and I intend to read all of Calvino’s Cosmicomics. I still am not entirely sure of the distinction we are trying to make with the work, the work is still fiction but yes it takes some liberties and just becomes a literary work just as Bloodchild did it puts in a completely alien perspective to disorient you but still manages to raise questions of our own humanity and limitations.