trilogy ' Our ancêtres' of Italo Calvino includes/understands ' the Viscount pourfendu' (1951), ' the baron perché' (1957) and ' the knight inexistant' (1959). Faithful to the original imagination of the writer, it puts in scene three characters at singular attributes.
' the Viscount pourfendu' tells the history of Medard de Terralba, a knight crossed into two at the time of a battle against the Turks. The two halves survive however, but at the price of a surprising Manicheism: the first does it badly, the second the good. It is unfortunately the first which returns the first with the fold, where it makes little by little reign terror. The remaining half tries after a fashion to repair the misdeeds of different sound oneself, until final reunification.
In ' the baron perché', the character éponyme decides at the 12 years age to settle in a tree of the family property and in never going down. Its situation however does not prevent it from carrying out an overflowing life of activities, rich person in engagements, meetings, disappointments and joys, until its death, to an age more than honourable.
Lastly, ' the knight inexistant' describes the adventures of a quite alive armour but vacuum, of a young revanchist who revolves around him and of a second mysterious knight. Obnubilated by the order and the practice, in which it find a loophole with the madness that its unusual condition makes him often to pass very close to, Agilulfe Bertrandinet of Guildivernes fights, counters those of its camp, enemies of the country and itself.
As with its practice, Calvino makes a success of the challenge to touch with questions fundamental while preserving an almost childish writing. Its narrators are thus chosen so as to justify this completely simple style and accessible to all: a child in the first novel, the brother youngest child of baron perched in the second, and a withdrawn nun of the world in the last.