The teller of these tales has chance encounters as he walks along the valley of the river Po. These encounters ? two children who seek adults who are not unbearably banal and find none, a man who writes out his life because words are all that is left to him, a lonely woman who commits suicide after taping over every orifice that might be polluted by the outside world ? are presented in a language without artifice where it is the very voices of the characters that are heard. As in a Fellini film, the narrative meanders delightfully through episodes and anecdotes. In making the Po landscape the unifying focus of the reader's attention, Celati revolutionizes the art of storytelling. A Canterbury Tales for today.