If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler in The Obscure Reading Group

Apr 30, 2019 Laysee rated it really liked it

If on a sick bed, a reader picks up If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino, he or she is almost certain to become more ill. Why, oh why, of all the times I could have read this, I picked it up when I was physically unfit to read it? At first I was just mildly under the weather, and I was comforted by the opening pages which extended an enticing invitation to put up one’s legs and settle down for a good read. How lovely, I thought. The atmospheric first chapter opens in a provincial t ...more

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Jun 06, 2021 Kathleen rated it did not like it

Shelves: books, writing, classic, experimental-fic

“I have had the idea of writing a novel composed only of beginnings of novels. The protagonist could be a Reader who is continually interrupted. The Reader buys the new novel A by the author Z. But it is a defective copy, he can’t go beyond the beginning …”

Let me just say, not all writing ideas are good.

I can just picture my mother (who was an avid reader and extremely charitable) holding this book in her hand, scrunching up her face as she reads, then putting the book down into her lap, shruggi “I have had the idea of writing a novel composed only of beginnings of novels. The protagonist could be a Reader who is continually interrupted. The Reader buys the new novel A by the author Z. But it is a defective copy, he can’t go beyond the beginning …”

Let me just say, not all writing ideas are good.

I can just picture my mother (who was an avid reader and extremely charitable) holding this book in her hand, scrunching up her face as she reads, then putting the book down into her lap, shrugging her shoulders and saying “I guess some people like this sort of thing.”

I know they do because I read this with a lovely group and many there did like it and discovered interesting and amusing ideas. I enjoyed hearing their thoughts.

But I did not enjoy this book. The beginning was good--a reader beginning a book, with lots of little details we readers can relate to, and then the beginning of a story in a train station that had potential. After that it went downhill fast for me. I wouldn’t have minded the structure: a second person commentary followed by the beginning of a story, repeated and repeated and repeated. What got me was that each round got more and more boring, to the point where I had to force myself to turn the pages.

Calvino writes “…all the stories I read seem to carry an echo, immediately lost.” Perhaps. But in this book I not only lost the echo, I lost the story. I was shocked at how quickly I forgot each chapter after finishing it. I mean it was wiped completely out of my mind, which was very frustrating because of the work I had to put into paying attention to it enough to keep reading.

This is a post-modernist experiment, not a story. The author is clearly capable of writing a good story, and teases his readers, particularly the bookish kind, with thoughts about the experience of reading and the constraints of writing. But Calvino straddles two approaches--commentary and story--and never commits to either. I come away from reading this neither as from a fictional dream (thanks, Ken) nor stimulated by ideas. I just come away feeling teased--bullied almost.

I don’t dislike all post-modernist fiction. I don’t believe every story must have a beginning and an end, as Calvino asks at the end of this book. But stories must make you want to keep reading, and on that count, for me, this failed epically.

Perhaps Calvino wrote something I’d like better, but although my mom would have forgiven him quickly, I don’t like being bullied and I may hold a grudge against him for a long time. ...more

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Jun 19, 2021 Jan rated it really liked it

Shelves: discussions, recommended-to-me, international, fiction

Full of witty surprises and yielding debates and loyalties among readers, 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" is quite a unique book. Some chapters are direct one-sided conversations between the writer Italo Calvino (or is he an enigmatic Narrator?) and us readers, and other chapters take us on literary adventures which always end just in time to not completely finish. I laughed aloud at some stories which seemed to channel a droll Walter Mitty, and I shuddered in dislike other times when the st ...more

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May 17, 2015 Jeremy rated it it was amazing

This book is about you (first-person:I) reading this book, for if you haven't read it, it doesn't exist, and if you need to re-read it, then it has already mutated into something else. It is also about your goodreads friends reading this book, and they have roles to play in its shaping as well. The very nature of reading and its relationship to creation propels this perfectly postmodern novel to dizzying heights that induce your mind to wander/wonder. Calvino also seems to have presaged the adve ...more

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Jan 28, 2020 Lauren rated it it was amazing

OMFG THIS BOOK. How have I never read it? It will stay with me a LONG time and has a permanent spot on my bookshelf. I never ever reread books and I feel confident I'll return to this one in a couple years. It will hold up.

This is the -THE- book for the Reader in your life. If you are A Reader, get it now; this should be the very next book you read. It will challenge you. It will take you a WHILE to get through it. It will make you underline sentences, write in the margins, look up words, read ...more

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Nov 29, 2021 Cindy Newton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, favorites, books-about-books

I read this with one of my book groups, and I'm going to plagiarize shamelessly from the discussion posts I made while I was reading it. I think those posts capture my feelings as I fell in love with this book!

I was instantly charmed when I started reading. It seems like the spiral of texts is taking us down a delightful rabbit hole! My thought was that Calvino is exploring the multitude of ways that readers interact with stories and books. He starts with the physical: the foray into the booksho I read this with one of my book groups, and I'm going to plagiarize shamelessly from the discussion posts I made while I was reading it. I think those posts capture my feelings as I fell in love with this book!

I was instantly charmed when I started reading. It seems like the spiral of texts is taking us down a delightful rabbit hole! My thought was that Calvino is exploring the multitude of ways that readers interact with stories and books. He starts with the physical: the foray into the bookshop to obtain the book, overcoming the emotional and intellectual pull of the other texts there. He discusses the various locations and positions that are most conducive to satisfactory reading. He delves into the physical construction of books with the printing and binding problems, as well as separating uncut pages to reveal the text within.

His first "story" dissects the way we process a story as we read: our expectations and assumptions, our predictions and reliance on common tropes. He goes on to address the impact of author origin and history, the fluidity and evolution of languages (both living and dead), and the vagaries of translations. Throughout, he is constantly evaluating and examining the essence of stories.

The entire reading experience with this book was absolutely delightful. The book comes across to me, from beginning to end, as a celebration of everything to do with reading.

One quote that I marked (out of many!) is when he muses, "I would like to be able to write a book that is only an incipit, that maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning, the expectation still not focused on an object. But how could such a book be constructed? Would it break off after the first paragraph? Would the preliminaries be prolonged indefinitely? Would it set the beginning of one tale inside another, as in the Arabian Nights?" (173). I think he accomplished his goal, and masterfully!

One thought that occurred to me as I read was that the book is like one of those old carnival halls of mirrors, with each reflection containing yet another variation of all of the different aspects of readers and writers. He explores so many different issues connected to these two basic yet critical functions. English teachers are aware, when faced with the long list of curriculum standards that must be covered in their 50 minute class periods, of the enormity of the tasks concealed in the simple phrase "reading and writing." Calvino creates a web of intersecting ideas and issues that relate to and affects reading and writing, delving into them to expose the complexity that can lurk beneath the innocuousness.

Another thought I had when reading that was that Ermes Marana acted somewhat like a modern-day Tower of Babel, disrupting the ability of readers to bond with text and ultimately causing the authors to be unable to communicate with their readers. He leaves everyone wandering aimlessly, unable to connect in any meaningful way, each text banished to some nether region where it molders in obscurity, lost and unread.

I found a couple of articles discussing it, one of which posits that the structure actually represents a history of critical theory. The other classes it as "the anti-novel that may be the greatest twentieth-century book ever written on the theme of readers and reading of fiction." Anyway, I thought I would include the links for anyone who is interested.

Dactyl Review

"Critical Theory Through If On a Winter's Night a Traveler"

I loved the part at the end where each reader analyzes how they personally approach reading, and also what he did with the titles of the different stories at the end. This was a home run for me! :) ...more

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