Cosmicomics

Cosmicomics is a series of connected stories by Italo Calvino published in Italian in 1965 under the title Le cosmicomiche. The English edition, translated by William Weaver, was published in 1968. All but two of the stories are narrated by an ageless being named Qfwfq. Each one takes as a starting point a fact or theory about the natural history of the universe and makes it relatable to a human audience who cannot experience it directly.

When “Distance of the Moon” takes place, the moon is so close to the earth that earthly beings can climb up ladders to touch it. One night, Mrs. Vhd Vhd “swims” up toward the moon; Qfwfq, who loves her, jumps up to save her, but momentum pulls them into the gravitational field the moon and they fall “up” to it. They remain there for some time before Qfwfq comes back down to earth, leaving Mrs. Vhd Vhd on the moon.

Before the existence of solid matter, “At Daybreak” describes everything as diffuse and fluid.  Qfwfq is there with his family. They float in the dark and cold beneath nebulae. One day, definable, solid things begin to appear. Granny B’b cannot accept the changes. People and things get lost more easily. The sun appears, and the planets form. Qfwfq’s sister vanishes into the condensing mass that is Earth. Darkness returns and the characters are sure they have reached the end of everything, but it is merely a new day.



In “A Sign in Space,” Qfwfq seeks to make a sign in space where the sun was so that he can know, 200 million years later, that the sun has made a full revolution around its galaxy and returned to the original point. A sign as such is impossible, for there are no implements, bodies, or modes of representation, but somehow, one is brought into existence. He can think of nothing but the sign, meditating on its unique properties. He forgets its exact reality but retains a sense of its importance. He discovers that the same point is returned to only every three galactic years, so 600 million years instead of 200 million. He waits. Upon arriving at the spot, though, Qfwfq finds his sign has been excised by a being from another planetary system named Kgwgk. He resolves to make a new sign, but the very concept has changed irreparably. Countless other signs have come into existence. He finds that this multiplication makes the reality of space untenable.

“All At One Point” observes that all matter is condensed into the same minuscule point, resulting in extreme awkwardness and gossip among beings. Their saving grace is Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0s, who keeps everyone together, preventing jealousy. She says she would make noodles if there were ever enough space. Her unique collegiality is perhaps both the cause and casualty of the explosion that transforms everything.

In “Without Colors,” Earth is a solid mass but with no atmosphere, and therefore no colors, only ultraviolet radiation. While wandering, Qfwfq sees the eyes of another being, Ayl, and immediately falls in love. This moment, he reflects later, is when the colorless era begins to end. They communicate in gestures, translated into words. Wanting to give her something, he searches the planet for a thing of beauty but nothing seems worthy. He realizes he is searching for the emerging colors, while she fears them. As the colors increasingly predominate, she becomes more elusive, eventually disappearing entirely.



The universe is constantly expanding in “Games Without End,” but maintaining a constant average density. The creation of new hydrogen atoms implied by this leads to a game of marbles between Qfwfq and his friend Pfwfp. New atoms are worth three old ones. Pfwfp cheats. This intensifies the competition, leading Qfwfq and Pfwfp to create their own galaxies, each one chasing the other. One galaxy can never overtake the other, even as they lose interest in their game.

Fishlike vertebrates, among them Qfwfq’s family, begin to move onto land in “The Aquatic Uncle.” Only Great Uncle N’ba N’ga remains, stodgily, in the muddy shallows. The family continues to visit him on rare but regular occasions. To them, his choice makes him less civilized. Meanwhile, Qfwfq falls in love with a creature named Lll, who comes from a more advanced clan of land vertebrates. She has a tense encounter with N’ba N’ga but comes to see that she can live in water too, forming a bond with her lover’s grumpy relative. Eventually, she abandons her world and goes to live with N’ba N’ga.

In “How Much Shall We Bet,” Qfwfq and his companion, Dean k(y)K, make wagers based on the theory that the universe is self-regulating. The game begins before the existence of matter, continuing through the emergence of fire to the fall of Rome and the modern stock market.



No particular theory is definitively advanced for the fall of the dinosaurs in “The Dinosaurs,” but Qfwfq is the very last of them. Much of the new population hates and fears him, calling him the Ugly One. His few friends are some fern flowers. Eventually, Qfwfq’s clear obsolescence overtakes him and he disappears.

An unnamed narrator falls through space in “The Form of Space,” but the fall is unlike any that the gravitational force of Earth can produce. A drama ensues with other falling beings, namely his love interest Ursula H’x, and his rival for her affections, Lieutenant Fenimore. The contours of their falling trajectories become the contours of their love triangle, but they never meet.

In “The Light-Years,” again an unnamed narrator is looking through his telescope and sees a sign in a galaxy far away reading, “I SAW YOU.” He does a calculation, looks in his datebook, and determines that the sign-maker must have seen something he did that he was trying to hide, 200 million years before. Contemplating how to respond, he communicates with other galaxies across vast distances.



Qfwfq returns as a rock-clinging mollusk in the final episode, “The Spiral,” describing to his human audience his life as a very much headless, nearly sexless creature. Surprisingly, his existence is just as rich with emotion, obstacles, romance, and sensuousness as our own.