Quick – Experience

Oh, Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) – I think that this phrase will be burned into my brain forever since I’ve been over this concept of Quickness so many times. Calvino described quickness in writing that has speed, not haste. I am reminded of the man on horse who told the story so badly he was cut off mid-sentence!

I think I chose the perfect book for the quality of Quickness because comedians make the best storytellers! I definitely felt that Tina Fey exhibited this quality when she relayed her experience of working with the Second City improvisational group. During this experience, Tina Fey and her improv group, BlueCo, drove for days on end just to perform in front of audiences for very low pay. But they loved it! From the book, it sounds like they were able to express themselves by throwing out the “best of” sketches that they were supposed to perform and instead made up new sketches where they could play the parts they wanted. I think it is here that Tiney Fey learned some of the best storytelling abilities. In improv, you need to be able to think quickly. But not only that, you need to be able to do it in a way that is interesting or funny, or else you will lose the attention of your audience. Fey mentions that one of the rules of improv is that you need to be apart of the solution. You should follow the “YES, AND” rule:

If I start a scene with “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you just say, “Yeah…” we’re kind of at a stand-still. But if I say, ” I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “What did you expect? We’re in hell,” now we’re getting somewhere.

Quickness: Calvino’s Quality

In order to explain the quality of Quickness, Calvino tells the story of Charlemagne written by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly:

“Late in life the emperor Charlemagne fell in love with a German girl. The barons at his court were extremely worried when they saw that the sovereign, wholly taken up with his amorous passion and unmindful of his regal dignity, was neglecting the affairs of state. When. the girl suddenly died, the courtiers were greatly relieved – but not for long, because Charlemagne’s love did not die with her. The emperor had the embalmed body carried to his bedchamber, where he refused to be parted from it. The Archbishop turpin, alarmed by this macabre passion, suspected an enchantment and insisted on examining the corpse. Hidden under the girl’s dead tongue he found a ring with a precious stone set in it. As soon as the rung was in turpin’s hands, Charlemagne fell passionately in love with the archbishop and hurriedly had the girl buried. In order to escape the embarrassing situation, Turpin flung the ring into Lake Constance. Charlemagne thereupon fell in love with the lake and would not leave its shores” (Calvino, 31).

Calvino uses this story as an example because it was very well written. Many writers have attempted to re-write this same story (Paris, Petrarch, Errizzo) and they have not been up to par because they are lacking in “Quickness.” They do not have the same speed and the chain of events is not as cohesive. Quickness is the ability of a writer to control the speed of a story. As in Charlemagne’s story, one second and a thousand years can pass by with equal quickness and allure. A master of Quickness is able to make time an ally.

Additionally, quickness in writing has a rapidity and rhythm on the page ; the pronunciation can create a tempo. Calvino uses the art of poetry as an example. Read aloud, poetry changes our perspective of how language can be used. Some poems almost sound like a song when you read them out loud. When a good poem is read, you get the sense that the diction was carefully chosen. Writing with the quality of Quickness should have the same effect. Each word should be so well chosen that it is unalterable. Writing should have rapidity but not so much that the substance suffers. This is when Calvino introduces his own personal motto and emblem which coincides with Quickness:

Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) is the motto that accompanies this emblem. It means that when working one should strive for haste, not speed. Speed sacrifices quality, haste embodies diligence. One should work and create works in which there is no sense of time passing. Quickness is defined by this motto and emblem.