Klein and Calvino: Reading, Mourning, and the Ghosts of Our Past

Abstract

This interdisciplinary article offers a Kleinian interpretation of Italo Calvino's Il visconte dimezzato (1952), a text that lends itself remarkably well to her object-relational psychoanalytic model. In particular, it explores how Calvino appears to embrace Klein's paradigm of psychological development, with its movement from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position, which is crucial for the survival of modern society. Writing in the aftermath of World War II, both Klein and Calvino shared deep convictions about humanity and hope for the future of society. And both believed that in order for society to cope with the sequelae of ongoing ideological clashes, we all need to engage in honest self-reflection in order to become whole or at least more wholly aware of what we disavow and project onto each other. Reading and mourning, two intimately involved activities, are explored here as Calvino's and Klein's suggested path to recovery. And finally, this article offers ways that Klein's constructs, which continue to play prominent roles in contemporary psychoanalysis, might be used more broadly in literary and sociopolitical analysis.