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

Jan 19, 2020 Antonomasia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: el, 1001-books, 2020, 2010, italy, decade-1970s, 2014

I like books to be about other things, not just about books. So even when I got past the obstacle of the first chapter there was still a lot to roll my eyes at. (That chapter, on perhaps my second attempt at If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, 5 1/2 years ago, had annoyed me so much that I ostentatiously threw the book down on the patio.) A lot of stuff in this novel sounds like overthinking even to me. And about something so trivial and boringly recursive. I just do not *get* "book culture" as ...more

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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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Dec 16, 2011 Denise E. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

A fantastic book that keeps you guessing right until the end - almost like a book of short stories, but not quite. Some of the imagery and locations stayed with me for a long, long time after reading this. For some reason, almost group it with Cloud Atlas - wondering if people who enjoyed one would enjoy the other.

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Aug 06, 2011 Bjørn Grønntun added it

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