Infinite Limits

Multiple Experience

          Calvino describes multiplicity as the part of a story that gives an element of puzzle, which in turn gives the novel its plot and formal scheme. This idea gives the novel a more complex meaning and allows the reader to dig deeper into what the author is actually stating. If the work I chose, Dolly City had no real complexities, it would be boring to read and would not continue to catch the eyes and minds of the readers. The puzzle element that is made about the main character Dolly is what makes the novel so intriguing and enhances the plot of the story.

          Calvino believes that the more the work tends towards the multiplication of possibilities, the further it departs from the one idea the writer is stating. There are several meanings to what is written on paper, and therefore the author wants the reader to notice the more complex styles they use. Dolly is a complex character, and therefore enables the reader to think about what is really being said and what is really going to happen. Calvino uses an idea that really extends to this novel about a common nucleus. Even though each work starts out with a common beginning and meaning, the author is able to put in more figurative language that allows for different interpretations. For example, this story is based around one character Dolly, and her son. She is a physician and believes that she can cure all the diseased things around her. Though the main focus is on Dolly, there are other little hints that provide other outside situations. In one instance Dolly is walking through her town, and provides an example of such: “I looked at this familiar scene and wondered how many times in human history people had been buried under the ruins of something they themselves had built” (Castel-Bloom 91). Not only is Dolly portraying the crazed mindset she has about the world around her, she is referencing something like the Holocaust where many Jewish people were harmed by what other humans had built. Like Calvino discusses, from a common nucleus comes many different interpretations depending on how one reads a certain section.