Under the Jaguar Sun is a collection of threeshort stories byItalo Calvino. The stories were to have been in a book entitledI cinque sensi (The Five Senses). Calvino died before writing the stories dedicated to vision and touch. In the Italian edition (Garzanti, 1986) the stories are ordered as follows:Il nome, il naso;Sotto il sole giaguaro; andUn re in ascolto. The titular storySotto il sole giaguaro was originally published asSapore sapere ("learning to taste") in the June 1982 edition ofFMR, an Italian magazine.[1]
In the 1988 English translation byWilliam Weaver, the works are arranged by length, beginning with "Under the Jaguar Sun" followed by "A King Listens" and lastly "The Name, The Nose."[2]
According to theKindle[3] edition,Under the Jaguar Sun was first published asThe Jaguar Sun in theNew Yorker, translation copyright 1983 by Harcourt, Inc.The Name, the Nose was first published inAntaeus, translation copyright 1976 by Harcourt, Inc. It states that the English language copyright is 1988 by Harcourt, Inc.
Sotto il sole giaguaro involves a couple on vacation inMexico, experiencing difficulties in their relationship. Mexico is presented as a country characterised by its bloody history, both in theindigenous past and in itscolonised period, which includes the present. The sense of taste is explored in this story, and used by the couple as a substitute for sex. As they travel tasting different dishes, they stumble upon an old secret of the ancient cuisine that may prove to be cannibalistic.[4]
Un re in ascolto focuses on the sense of hearing. It is written in thesecond-person. In the story, apalace becomes a giant ear and a King is obsessed by fears of rebellion which send him toward a state of restless aural surveillance. Thisparanoia only seems to halt when he hears the sincere love song of a woman.[4] The story was made into an eponymous operawork by the composerLuciano Berio, and served as basis for Myriorama[5][6] (2004), a telematic dance piece by ambientTV.NET[7] in collaboration with kondition pluriel,[8] which questioned surveillance of daily life through networked telecommunication technologies.
Il nome, il naso is told from the perspective of three different characters: a Frenchsensualist, a prehistoric entity on the verge of becoming human, and a drug-addled musician. They are united in their quest of a captivating female scent, which in the end is revealed to be death.[4]