Can you tell me about this strange-looking book?
June 7, 2010 6:24 PM Subscribe
I stumbled upon the strange cover to I Mostri in Fiore by Nocentini Giovanni. Can anyone tell me more about it?
Best answer: The Google translation wasn't very good, but zueod got the gist of it: scientist creating life in a lab. The text from the jacket goes something like this:
"The stories of Aldous Huxley in the 1930s, which among other things told of in vitro cultivation of humans, were "wicked amusements" that, even though troubling and prescient, were derived from futuristic fantasies with a taste for the absurd.
In contrast, today the industrial zone, made of aluminum and glass, has truly insinuated itself, proliferating, in our cities. And the fact that on the 14th floor of a skyscraper in just such a zone Professor Leo Rufo is attempting to create Life and Man in his laboratory as it is thought they originally were, while his colleagues work on breakfast pills, is not presented either as a futuristic fantasy or as an amusement, but rather as reality."
posted by TBAcceptor at 9:59 PM on June 7, 2010
"The stories of Aldous Huxley in the 1930s, which among other things told of in vitro cultivation of humans, were "wicked amusements" that, even though troubling and prescient, were derived from futuristic fantasies with a taste for the absurd.
In contrast, today the industrial zone, made of aluminum and glass, has truly insinuated itself, proliferating, in our cities. And the fact that on the 14th floor of a skyscraper in just such a zone Professor Leo Rufo is attempting to create Life and Man in his laboratory as it is thought they originally were, while his colleagues work on breakfast pills, is not presented either as a futuristic fantasy or as an amusement, but rather as reality."
posted by TBAcceptor at 9:59 PM on June 7, 2010
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Translating some book jacket copy, it looks to be about a professor trying to recreate life in the laboratory.
Here's the original Italian in case someone comes by who can give you a better translation than Google:
"I mostri in fiore"
Quelli di Aldous Huxley negli anni trenta, che raccontava fra l’altro della coltivazione in vitro di uomini, erano “divertimenti malvagi” che, nonostante inquietanti e premonitori, scaturivanodal gusto dell’assurdo e da fantasie avveniristichue. Invece oggi la “zona industriale”, tutta di duralluminio e cristallo, si è davvero inserita, proliferante, nelle nostre città; e il fatto che al quattrodicesimo piano di un grattacielo di tale zona il professore Leo Rufo tenti di realizzare in laboratorio la vita e l’uomo come si presuppone fossero alle origini, mentre i suoi colleghi realizzano “colazioni” in pillole, non viene proposto in questo racconto né come fantasia avveniristica né come divertimento, bensì come realtà. zona il professore Leo Rufo tenti di realizzare in laboratorio la vita e l’uomo come si presuppone fossero alle origini, mentre i suoi colleghi realizzano “colazioni” in pillole, non viene proposto in questo racconto né come fantasia avveniristica né come divertimento, bensì come realtà."
posted by zueod at 7:42 PM on June 7, 2010