Under The Jaguar Sun

I have been a fan of Italo Calvino since college when I read the fascinating If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, so when I read in the Mexico Lonely Planet that he had written a story that was an ode to Mexican food I knew I would have to read Under The Jaguar Sun (1986). This collection of three stories was meant to be a larger collection of stories about the five senses, however Calvino died before the completion of the series. The first story, "Under the Jaguar Sun," delivered and then some with a treaties on taste that made me want to immediately book a flight to Mexico. I like the fact that Calvino includes references to Mexico's bloody past before and after colonization. The other two stories, "A King Listens" (about hearing) and "The Name, the Nose" (about smell) also have their virtues-a lyrical narrative style is among them. This collection was inspirational in a sense since it makes me want to revisit Calvino's oeuvre and read all the other works that I have not read yet (since the only other novel I read was Invisible Cities).