From the Bookshelf of On Paths Unknown…

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

Italo Calvino,

William Weaver (Translator)

Start date: November 6, 2015

Discussion: POSTMODERNISM ITALIAN STYLE

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Showing 2 of 7 topics — 153 comments total

POSTMODERNISM ITALIAN STYLE

* Calvino: The Castle of Crossed Destinies: Thread 1. The Tale of the Ingrate and His Punishment
By Amy (Other Am… · 24 posts · 29 views

last updated Jan 19, 2016 03:40AM

The Castle of Crossed Destinies. [ENDING SPOILERS]
By Amy (Other Am… · 4 posts · 8 views

last updated Feb 02, 2016 02:51PM

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What Members Thought

Oct 15, 2012 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, crime-time, post-modernism, italy

If on a winter's night
a traveller picks this book,
prepare for a bit of sleight,
for this book's a hook.

A series of just starts,
and no ends in sight,
Divid'd in many parts,
But no parts-whole, not quite.

This, advent'rous reader
is a book compendium,
of oulipo muse, ('ll need her)
and threatens of novels to end 'em.

Why are you still here?
Get going! Go read it!
It's so sure to endear
and addict, you'll re-read it. ...more

27 likes · Like · see review

Sep 13, 2012 Rand rated it it was amazing

Shelves: once-a-fiction-well-met-aye, sir-real-is-um, fun-with-form, intertextual, variations, interstitial, favorites, novel, linguistix, rereading

You sigh, uncertain if you will ever again find that slim tome you began reading in that labyrinth off of the avenue so many moons ago. For the life of you you are not sure how it began, much less the title or author, or even where in the book you picked up the story's thread. You can hardly even recollect the end of the story for all its glory. Spying an old favorite, you pull if off the shelf, dislodging a torn fragment of something else entirely. Consumed with the writer's carefree charm, you ...more

19 likes · Like · see review

Jul 20, 2015 Xandra rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, z-m, three-and-a-half-stars, 1950-1999, european, italian-roman

In every chapter, Reader starts a new novel but is interrupted when it becomes most engrossing. So chapters are split between the tribulations Reader comes across while trying to finish what he’s reading and a couple of stories that end in cliff-hangers.

And now sorry, I have to rant, you’re better off skipping this review.

Reader (Lettore) and Other Reader (Lettrice) are characters in the book and neither of them is you!

The sections about Reader are told in second person which, for a short while In every chapter, Reader starts a new novel but is interrupted when it becomes most engrossing. So chapters are split between the tribulations Reader comes across while trying to finish what he’s reading and a couple of stories that end in cliff-hangers.

And now sorry, I have to rant, you’re better off skipping this review.

Reader (Lettore) and Other Reader (Lettrice) are characters in the book and neither of them is you!

The sections about Reader are told in second person which, for a short while, makes you feel like you’re part of the book or an indispensable extension of it. As you go along though, you realize that Calvino isn’t talking to you. His “Reader” is simply a character whose idiosyncrasies uniquely identify him. You’re a little disappointed but learn to accept it. Then he waves that bone in your face again: he leaves Reader for a bit and addresses a female Other Reader. And you think oh cool, half the book is adressed to Lettore, half to Lettrice. However, this only lasts for about ten pages then the focus is back on the male Reader. At this point you resent him and his silly game is not fun anymore.

It’s like in the beginning Calvino is talking to YOU, then he measures you up, pulls out a costume, wiggles his brows and says “come on, get into character, it will be fun”. You go along with it, but the whole thing slowly morphs into something similar to a school play you’re in against your will and you’re like “no, I don’t want to be a jealous Italian man with obsessive tendencies anymore” only it’s too late, the show must go on. He then assigns you a female role only to quickly change his mind with a “ha! just kidding, here’s an international literary conspiracy to distract you”.

I guess the reason for my annoyance is an unfulfilled expectation. When the spotlight switched from Reader to Other Reader in the middle of the book I thought that’s how it’s going to be until the end. It gave me hope. I wanted a change of costume, things didn’t go my way, I got annoyed.

At the very least, I wanted Calvino to leave a tiny space in Reader for me and for you. This is my disappointment. Reader doesn’t have anything vague about him, he’s not emblematic of readers everywhere, he’s not the proud face of a collectivity. He’s an individual. I’m not bothered that he’s a man, a genderless reader would be difficult to create in Italian, a language where adjectives betray you at every corner. But he’s too idiosyncratic for my liking. And the fact that his female counterpart HAS A NAME and exists only to allow the author to play matchmaker adds insult to the injury.

“For a second-person discourse to become a novel, at least two you’s are required, distinct and concomitant, which stand out from the crowd of he’s, she’s and they’s.”

I disagree. And in any case, you didn’t really follow your own rule, did you?

Okay, rant over. The book is actually brilliant in what it has to say about the nature of reading. I recommend it, ugh. ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Feb 10, 2018 Suki St Charles rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-you-must-read-boxall, well-read-list, catching-up-on-classics-book-club, 2018-goodreads-challenge

"Every day, before starting work, I look at the woman in the deck chair: I say to myself that the result of the unnatural effort to which I subject myself, writing, must be the respiration of this reader, the operation of reading turned into a natural process, the current that brings the sentences to graze the filter of her attention, to stop for a moment before being absorbed by the circuits of her mind and disappearing, transformed into her interior ghosts, into what in her is most personal an ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

May 16, 2014 amaldae rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-2014

I have never read a book that feels as much like reading this book as reading this book does. Does Calvino read minds?

In other words, yes, I was bored with it, confused by it, annoyed and hungry for a complete novel. Determined to find a reliable thread of story to follow. Always finding another chapter, another story, another way to read, another person to be, getting lost in a labyrinth constructed entirely of paper and words, forming worlds, coming back to me, finding me before I can find the ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 02, 2015 Phil J rated it really liked it

Shelves: 500-essential-cult-books

I've never been so intimidated by the previous reviews of a book. This must be the Velvet Underground of books- only a few people read it, but after they do, they write amazing reviews.

I can't compete with the others for insight or creativity, so I'll go with brevity. This is the most accessible post-modern book that I have read aside from The Crying of Lot 49. Most of it was just amazing. I loved the rhythm of the first three quarters of it. The last part of it was so overtly metafictional that ...more

3 likes · Like · see review