If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

published	1982 by Harvest Books
binding	paperback
isbn	0156439611 (isbn13: 9780156439619)
description	Calvino shows that the novel, far from being a dead form, is capable of endless mutations. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler turns out to be ...more [close] Calvino shows that the novel, far from being a dead form, is capable of endless mutations. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambiance, and author. Translated by William Weaver.
date added	03-18-07 edit book

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Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0679420258)

03/16/08

Read in March, 2008

Writers like Calvino make writers like me pound my fist against the desk in frustration and jealousy of his immense skillz. I began reading this book with a certain hesitation, a kind of what-the-fuck? mentality. You - the Reader - are being spoken to directly by narrator, ostensibly Calvino, and he informs you that you are about to begin reading If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino. It's almost comically straightforward, and then you're off, invested as the main charac...more Writers like Calvino make writers like me pound my fist against the desk in frustration and jealousy of his immense skillz. I began reading this book with a certain hesitation, a kind of what-the-fuck? mentality. You - the Reader - are being spoken to directly by narrator, ostensibly Calvino, and he informs you that you are about to begin reading If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino. It's almost comically straightforward, and then you're off, invested as the main character in a book within a book about a book within a book, folded one upon the other several times more. The level of abstraction is delightfully complex.

As the book as a whole consists of several (ten, to be exact) beginnings, and with each beginning purported to be by another author (Silas Flannery, Takakumi Ikoka, Calixto Bandera, Ukko Ahti, et al.), every time you begin to get sucked into the new narrative and fully invest yourself in that world, you get broken off, for myriad reasons. You - the Reader - go on an adventure to find the complete manuscript, only to get sidetracked, misled, misinformed, led down alternative avenue. You encounter another Other Reader - a woman named Ludmilla - and you embark on one of the most bizarre relationships. You have an erotic moment together, where in the act of intercourse, you read one another. It's pure fucking genius, I tell ya.

Calvino writes: " Lovers' reading of each other's bodies (of that concentrate of mind and body which lovers use to go to bed together) differs from the reading of written pages in that it is not linear. It starts at any point, skips, repeat itself, goes backward, insists, ramifies in simultaneous and divergent messages, converges again, has moments of irritation, turns the page, finds its place, gets lost. A direction can be recognized in it, a route to an end, since it tends toward a climax, and with this end in view it arranges rhythmic phases, metrical scansions, recurrence of motives. But is the climax really the end? Or is the race toward that end opposed by another drive which works in the opposite direction, swimming against moments, recovering time?"

I mean.... holy fuck!!
My head and heart linger with these pages, these hesitations, false beginnings, the threading of your own narrative. And just when you think the book is inaccessible, it has its hooks in you once more. Read it, live it, love it. ...less

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Jason rated it:

12/23/07

bookshelves: italian, modernism

Read in December, 2007

I would probably give this book a higher rating if I had not read any of Calvino's other works, but I found it inferior to The Non-Existent Knight and the Cloven Viscount. All of Calvino's works challenge reader expectations, but here he goes one step too far in putting form over substance.

While I suspect most reviewers would consider "If on a winter's night a traveler" a bold expirement, it is really the most logical step after modernism. Where modernism was concerned to a large...more I would probably give this book a higher rating if I had not read any of Calvino's other works, but I found it inferior to The Non-Existent Knight and the Cloven Viscount. All of Calvino's works challenge reader expectations, but here he goes one step too far in putting form over substance.

While I suspect most reviewers would consider "If on a winter's night a traveler" a bold expirement, it is really the most logical step after modernism. Where modernism was concerned to a large extent with the relation between writer, text, and reality, this book focuses on the relationship between text and reader. The literary philosophy is pretty heavy-handed through most of the book, basically banging the reader over the head with a subjective view of literature: reading is not about what the author has to tell you but what you are looking for as the reader.

The most striking feature of the book is the experimental structure. The is about you the reader struggling to find your way through a series of incomplete novels. The book begins in the second person, a first for me. The novel then begins and then ends at a moment of suspense. Calvino then reverts to the second person and the "plot" turns out to be about how you the reader try to find the rest of the story. But each time the story resumes, it turns out to be a completely different novel that again gets cut short. The resulting fragmentary structure is interesting, but certainly tests the readers patience. It's not often that I think a 260 page book is too long, but I think Calvino could have cut out a few of the stories and still made his point.

There are also some pretty awkward transitions, like when Calvino tries to move from addressing one male reader in the second person to a second female reader. Not a smooth transfer, and Calvino doesn't really stick with it. In the end, Calvino actually ties the loose ends together in a clever little package as a reward for the patient reader. It's cute, but perhaps a bit gimmicky.

I also found Calvino's treatment of sex pretty tacky. The sex scene between the two readers as an analogy for reading is just plain silly.

But Calvino does pull off some great moments of Voltairian wackiness. The literary philosophy is also pretty interesting if that's your thing. For those readers interested in a lighter dose of literary philosophy with more emphasis on Calvino's famed fabulism, I would suggest trying his earlier works. They're quite fun. If you can get past the vulgarity, I think Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" also strikes a better balance between humor, plot, and literary experimentation.

But if you want to read a book about reading and really want to think about the place books have in your life, "If on a winter's night a traveler" could prove instructive....less

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