Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Calvino is taking a rather tortuous route to try and get a message across to people just like us: that we must never forget the anticipatory delight to be had from not knowing what we'll find when we open a book.

I must admit, that for me, the 'not knowing' is the strongest motivation for reading.
...but this is not the only delight I personally get from reading - to me, a lot of it is the journey.

I see this as a book about reading, and I must admit that when starting to read it, I had to force myself not to look up anything about it. Of course, this is the kind of book where its reputation precedes it, but I suppose nothing can substitute for actually reading it, eh?

Speaking of reputation - has anybody around here read some Calvino before, and if so, which ones?

What's your own list, Ruth?
Hmm, there is a mistake in the schedule, btw - we had not definitely decided on Mimic Men - but I don't have time to fix it now. It's still far off enough to fix it later.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "
Looking over at Wikipedia, Calvino was a member of Oulipo, so this will be my first Oulipo read. Per the article, Calvino cites Vladimir Nabokov as a general influence, and Mikhail Bulgakov, Yasunari Kawabata, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Juan Rulfo, José María Arguedas, Jorge Luis Borges and G.K. Chesterton as having influenced, in various ways, the narrative style of the ten stories that comprise the book. "[T]he structure of the text is said to be an adaptation of the structural semiology of A.J. Greimas."."

Sorry, Amy, I had meant to thank you for your research and your info there. So much to think about and write about!

Quite a reading list there! Him being Italian, slightly shifts the focus that a person with an Anglophone background would have had, but there's nevertheless many familiar names there.

Yeah, Semiotics! Italians really seem into semiotics, don't they? ;)

Thanks, Cecily and Derek. That story you linked to looks interesting, Derek.

Ah, Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar! It's been on the TBR for ages, but I forgot about it. Thanks for reminding, Linda!

Thanks, guys; I just thought I would mention it so you know there's a reason if I suddenly go AWOL...

Yolande; if you've already read it, I am sure you'd enjoy everyone's comments, so do pop in every now and then, even if you don't reread it!

Linda wrote: "Hi Trav,
Sorry to hear about your mum! If they've decided that they have to do it, it means they can, so that's good. And people look horrible when they come out of it, but hour by hour you can see..."

Thanks, Linda. (view spoiler)[ Well, apparently they can't actually do it yet, because the damage is too severe, and she needs to recover some? I don't know... I'll hear what my sibling whose field that is, has to say. (hide spoiler)]

Back to IOAWNAT: In this case, the effect is also pretty odd; first, it's as if the author/narrator is speaking about the reader, and then one of the characters starts speaking about both the author and the reader. Very meta. ...and he somehow actually seems to weave a plot into all this commentary!

Nate D wrote: "Oh, sorry to hear about your mother, Traveler! I hope she's doing better shortly!

As to your last question, I would actually argue that If On a Winter's Night a Traveler is only one of the most fu..."

Thanks Nate and Amy.
It's good to hear that you loved this enough to read it twice, Nate! Reading that gives the rest of us courage, eh gang?

@ Ruth: many points of view indeed, since even his first-person viewpoint isn't quite the one we're used to...

Right at the beginning, it felt as if the author was talking to us; manipulating us, and later, it's a character from the book that is talking to us, referring to the author and his tricks.

It almost feels like watching one of those animated comics strips, where it's like a conventional comic strip in a newspaper at first, and the character(s) start moving and climbing out of the picture frames.

I'm very glad to hear that, Jennifer! I really hope we'll be able to keep up with such an arduous program, but that's the only way to get all those TBR's read! ;)

If anyone can manage to spot an omission, or if they want to read something there on a different date than I have it there, please try to let me know?

Someone complained that they couldn't see the images nicely. I have now taken new screenshots and re-uploaded the images in a larger format, and spread the images over various posts. I hope you can all read them clearly now?

Here's a link to the actual bookshelf: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Magdelanye wrote: "this isn't exactly a spoiler,nor a brag, but O I have just finished MAs latest ( I think) the Heart Goes Last and whoa, I wasn't expecting such intense pleasure.
it is wickedly funny and a deliciou..."

Oh cool! Thanks for that feedback, Magdelanye!

I find that Shakespeare often imbues some of his characters with wit and charm, and they can really give one another some what-for.

Well, I think Calvino drops a lot of commentary about various things in the book, which we need to be aware of - it might just look like senseless prattle at times, but right at the start already, for example, he is of course being extremely postmodern and breaking the forth wall there - I mean how much father can you break the fourth wall than talking to the reader about his/her experience of reading the same text he is referring to himself!

But he also makes a commentary on "how" he feels we should read a text- remember, those lit crit discussions we've had in other discussions about "how" we should be experiencing a text - he comments about the phenomenon of how readers start to 'label' and almost "pigeon hole" a favorite author - of how we build up expectations about certain authors, and like he says, when we buy more of that author we want to see more of what we're used to.

He says, that in the case of this book, as you try and identify 'familiar' features in this new Calvino novel, you probably go through the following process:

Let's see. Perhaps at first you feel a bit lost, as when a person appears who, from the name, you identified with a certain face, and you try to make the features you are seeing tally with those you had in mind, and it won't work. But then you go on and you realize that the book is readable nevertheless, independently of what you expected of the author, [emphasis mine] it's the book in itself that arouses your curiosity; in fact, on sober reflection, you prefer it this way, confronting something and not quite knowing yet what it is.

So in a way, he might have made an attempt at what is called "defamiliarising" - in the very fact of being with you there in your face, he is giving us nothing of this novel we were promised, and so, we almost feel we have to fight for getting to this darn novel he keeps promising us.

But he's also warning us - and even worse, demonstrating to us, that we should not have preconceptions, and should not expect anything familiar.

Defamiliarisation was a technique coined by playwright Berthold Brecht and the Russian formalists, which represents a technique of constantly pulling the reader out of the text and making him aware that it is a text - it's something I am not personally fond of, but the idea is supposed to be that it forces the readers to think about the themes presented in the text more intellectually rather than to approach the text and the characters in an emotional way.

...but as Amy mentioned, all of this in the case of Calvino, would tie back to his being part of the Oulipo movement which was experimental in these kinds of ways.

Do any of you feel that these techniques make you feel uncomfortable? irritated? intrigued? maybe even entertained?

Following is a tentative view of what our reading schedule for the rest of 2015 and up to June of 2016 looks like:

Yolande wrote: "Can I just write a tribute to everyone on here who participate in GR group reads?

Before I started participating in group reads, I was very hesitant in sharing my thoughts and feelings with an on..."

What a lovely tribute! Thank you very much for posting it, Yolande, and may I add my best wishes for your tutoring activities!

Indeed! GR has taught me so, so much. More than I could have learned in the narrow confines of any college or university. Cheers!

Hmm, maybe I should have mentioned that the 'novel' is rather experimental; it's written in the second person ("You"-viewpoint as opposed to the first person "I" or the third person "he/she" viewpoint) - something which one rarely sees in a novel.

How do you people feel about this? I'd be interested in your reactions when you read the first few pages.

In any case, do persevere, he does eventually start to focus on a story that is not just about you reading the book. :)

Unfortunately, I got news earlier on today that my mother survived a massive heart attack and is in hospital where she will require bypass surgery. I'm waiting to try and see if I'll have to fly up there to see her and when, so apologies if... well, in any case, you people can still start in any case, and I will do the best I can.

I was going to post a "newsletter" to remind of this discussion and to point to the schedule for next year, but under the circumstances, my plans have gone slightly awry.

In any case, as for If On a Winter's Night, I was going to make a comment along the lines of: "Aw darn, now that it's a group discussion, I can't just skim the boring parts!", which of course the first few pages is.

Well, it can't continue like that for the entire book, surely... ;)
Some of it is rather humorous, I find, like the bit about the Books. We know all about that, don't we? Reminded me of Borges, too, that bit.

I especially loved this bit, btw:
but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.

I felt like Calvino had read my mind, and here he is exposing my shame openly.

Truth be told, I have books that I read long ago when I was too little to really understand, and books which I never completely finished.

I feel Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury winking at me especially acutely right now... :P

(view spoiler)[ You cast another bewildered look at the books around you (or, rather: it was the books that looked at you, with the bewildered gaze of dogs who, from their cages in the city pound, see a former companion go off on the leash of his master, come to rescue him), and out you went. :D (hide spoiler)]

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: " I find Poe's preference for people murdering the jeepers out of each other much more horrifying than Lovecraft's alien gods."

I agree. Poe often seems totally innocuous at..."

Mmm-hmm. Except for the game I mentioned, I never actually felt scared by anything Lovecraft had written, and in the game, the scary part was how creepy the people were, which Lovecraft never manages to really get across in his writing in a visceral way, I find.

Well, Xbox360 was quite a bit cheaper than PS3.

Do get them (Syberia) if you can get them for a reasonable price - they're old but they're little works of art, especially if you enjoy Steampunk!

Note that they are not action games, though- they are the story type of adventure game where you have to figure things out, so no swinging trough the trees a la Lara Croft! :D Really enjoyable story though, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere.
Also, you do have to start with the first one, because the story follows on.

If you're used to Lara Croft, you might find movement frustratingly slow at first - but hang in there, you'll soon get immersed in the story!