If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler in Never too Late to Read Classics

Jun 03, 2021 Sara rated it did not like it

Shelves: language, absurd, post-modernism

This is going to be a very short review of a very long, long book--a book that seemed interminable at times, a book that began and ended and began again and never reached any point that would have made it worth the effort for me.

Yes, I know it is clever. There are moments of laughter and enjoyment at the beginning. The book is mostly about readers and their relationships to books, and there were times when you looked into the mirror of Calvino’s words and saw your own face staring back at you.

th This is going to be a very short review of a very long, long book--a book that seemed interminable at times, a book that began and ended and began again and never reached any point that would have made it worth the effort for me.

Yes, I know it is clever. There are moments of laughter and enjoyment at the beginning. The book is mostly about readers and their relationships to books, and there were times when you looked into the mirror of Calvino’s words and saw your own face staring back at you.

the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.

I’ve known all of these books, and I’m betting you have all known them as well. As the ultimate reader, you are almost one of the characters in the book, and Calvino knows you and exploits you. You will want to like this, you will find some quotable moments, some ideas you can relate to:

“Your case gives me new hope,” I said to him. “With me more and more often, I happen to pick up a novel that has just appeared and find myself reading the same book I have read a hundred times.”

Happens to us all. If that is your only criteria, I can promise you that you have not read this book 100 times.

This is theatre of the absurd without purpose; this is an author wallowing in the phrase “I am different”; this is surrealism gone amok; this is a book without a plot, any defined characters, any sense of setting, whose only driver is its narrator’s point of view. The author has blurred the lines between what is real and what is fictional and he continues to stir the elements of the novel into an eddy that eventually dragged me down into boredom and ennui. By the halfway mark, the cleverness had worn thin and I no longer cared a whit for whatever point Calvino might have been attempting. I pressed on to see if there was some cohesion in the end, but alas, I found none.

To those of you who will be tempted to tell me I am simply not intelligent enough to get this book, to appreciate the complicated and innovative nature of its construction, to decipher the complexities of its author’s mind and intent, I say “poppycock”.

I started this book a few years back and DNF’d it almost immediately. My instincts said it was not for me. Had I been smart, I would have left it on the shelf. Maybe if I live to be 100 I will eventually learn to listen to those instincts--they are usually on target.
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Jun 03, 2015 H rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, e-book, postmodernism, novels, 20th-century

While picking up this book, the main idea in my head was to see if this was just a gimmick. (Background: The book is essentially split into two(?) narratives, where one consists of You, the reader, reading a book called If on a Winter's Night a Traveler[yes, really]. The second narrative, or rather the multiple second narratives are merely the first chapters of a new book that you end up finding each time, in your fruitless attempt to complete what you started. )
So yeah, the basic idea is someth While picking up this book, the main idea in my head was to see if this was just a gimmick. (Background: The book is essentially split into two(?) narratives, where one consists of You, the reader, reading a book called If on a Winter's Night a Traveler[yes, really]. The second narrative, or rather the multiple second narratives are merely the first chapters of a new book that you end up finding each time, in your fruitless attempt to complete what you started. )
So yeah, the basic idea is something that does set this book apart. But what is also rather remarkable is the execution. The way the first two ideas mesh in, and collaborate to actually form a piece that can be called a novel is astonishing in itself, but what is also brilliant is how kind of non-essential to the reading experience that is. For this book is not about the gimmick, it's not probably about the ACTUAL plot either, but rather about meditations on reading, writing, and literature.
Any discussion on the book would be incomplete without commending the diverse nature of stories within the story, ranging from , in David Mitchell's words, "the style of a Bogart movie, Borges, Chekhov, a spaghetti western, Mishima, and so on." Not to mention the bewilderment of You, the protagonist running about looking for the next chapter in "through a landscape of bookshops, rarefied campuses, shifty publishers, refined censors, reading rooms and literary guerrillas."
And if you needed even more reason to wonder why this books is "different", it is the sheer spirit in which it is written. The way it plays around with the narrative voices , depictions and figures of speech is not merely enriching to read, but also deeply reminiscent of the whole idea of reading. In fact, Calvino does allot a great part of the book to sheer musings on what reading means to readers, what writing means to writers, what readers means to writers, what writers means to readers and what not.
Highly recommended, for it takes the idea of what a novel is supposed to be, and plays around with it in a manner so obvious and striking that the sheer audacity of it brings a smile to your face.

-H ...more

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