Why read the classics? -- The odysseys within The odyssey -- Xenophon's Anabasis -- Ovid and universal contiguity -- The sky, man, the elephant -- Nezami's seven princesses -- Tirant lo blanc -- The structure of the Orlando furioso -- Brief anthology of octaves from Ariosto -- Gerolamo Cardano -- The book of nature in Galileo -- Cyrano on the moon -- Robinson Crusoe, journal of mercantile virtues -- Candide, or concerning narrative rapidity -- Denis Diderot, Jacques le fataliste -- Giammaria Ortes -- Knowledge as dust-cloud in Stendhal -- Guide for new readers of Stendhal's Charterhouse -- The city as novel in Balzac -- Charles Dickens, Our mutual friend -- Gustave Flaubert, Trois contes -- Leo Tolstoy, Two hussars -- Mark Twain, The man that corrupted Hadleyburg -- Henry James, Daisy Miller -- Robert Louis Stevenson, The pavilion on the links -- Conrad's captains -- Pasternak and the revolution -- The world is an artichoke -- Carlo Emilio Gadda, the Pasticciaccio -- Eugenio Montale, 'Forse un mattino andando' -- Montale's Cliff -- Hemingway and ourselves -- Francis Ponge -- Jorge Luis Borges -- The philosophy of Raymond Queneau -- Pavese and human sacrifice.
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