Condizionale, ipotetico, disgiuntivo: ipotassi del desiderio e ispessimento del linguaggio ne "Gli amori difficili" di Italo Calvino

The publication of Gli amori difficili in the definitive order of 1970 coincides with the already begun approach of calvinian writing to the structuralist universe and shortly precedes the exit of Le città invisibili: it is placed, therefore, on the ridge of a phase of change, but not as a break, but as a bridge. The analysis offered here of the rhetorical strategies and the lexical choices of the collection is aimed at highlighting the process of progressive thickening of the language that Calvino pursues and hopes for the future of Italian literature; a process that, verifiable and active in the Amori difficili, is a sign of the author’s fidelity to a word still capable of representing the being and that, made visible in the new arrangement of the stories at the beginning of the seventies, can offer some food for thought to reconsider the relationship between word and reality in the subsequent production.