Discussion - Week One - If on a winter's night a traveller - Ch. 1 - 4

[Jim]

This discussion covers Chapter 1 thru 4, page 3 – 90

[Amy (Other Amy)]

I really, really enjoyed this book, but as a woman I found the masculine 'you' to be problematic throughout. It wasn't until the returning of the book to the bookstore (when Reader meets Other Reader) that the problem of Reader being a man became apparent. (It has been pointed out to me that in the original Italian this is apparent from the beginning, so the English translation has some surprise there that is not in the original, but I think the problem would exist for me in the original as well.) It is really hard to make the reader a character in the book through 'you' but then specify 'you' is a man. (Not really a criticism, but I thought it was interesting.)

[Jim]

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I really, really enjoyed this book, but as a woman I found the masculine 'you' to be problematic throughout. It wasn't until the returning of the book to the bookstore (when Reader meets Other Read..."

The male "you" allows for the romantic pursuit of the female "other reader".

[Amy (Other Amy)]

True; he would not have had much of a plot to slot the Reader into as the protagonist otherwise. It was just jarring to come to in the reading, when the structure of the book so encourages identification with the Reader at first.

[Nicole]

Jim wrote: "The male "you" allows for the romantic pursuit of the female "other reader"."

Yes, one simply cannot imagine any other possible arrangement....

The male protagonist actually does not bother me (I am reading it, slowly, in Italian), but I don't think that this particular justification holds up very well.

[Zadignose]

Writing in the second person is fundamentally problematic. Most authors avoid it, some novices experiment with it and achieve terrible results, and on rare occasion a masterly writer takes it up and pulls it off amazingly well. (I think this book is such a case).

I see the book as the ultimate show-off book, and I mean that in the most generous way possible. It's a book in which a confident and experienced author sets out demonstrate that he can get away with absolutely anything in writing a book. He attacks some ridiculous challenges, one of them being the use of second-person, and the interaction of various other narrative strategies.

Note, if I say, "Carl fell down the stairs yesterday," you will say "Oh, that's interesting." If I say, "I fell down the stairs yesterday," you may say, "Yikes! I hope you're all right." But if I say "You fell down the stairs yesterday," your natural reaction is likely to be, "No, I didn't. What the hell are you talking about?"

But perhaps you will read with a different perspective after overcoming this initial shock. I know I didn't fall down the stairs yesterday, but he wants me to imagine that I did. I can play that game, and put myself into his narrative. But this book doesn't do that either, because eventually--whatever your gender--you're going to come to terms with the fact that "you" aren't "you"; you're going to have thoughts and actions attributed to you that you wouldn't have thought or done, and thus the second shock of realizing that you're reading about a character that you're being compelled, perhaps unwillingly, to identify with, though he may resemble you very little or not at all.

It starts within a few pages, though in a way that may only feel a little uncomfortable at first, as we're willing to play the game, even before we have quite entered the bookstore to buy the book: "You know the best you can expect is to avoid the worst." But hey, how does he know I'm as cynical as that? He's putting thoughts in my mind already and making me a slave to his whims! And into the train station that sets the first scene: "Watch out: it is surely a method of involving you gradually, capturing you in the story before you realize it--a trap."

That said, I understand that a female reader may be particularly jarred by the first discovery that "YOU" is a man.

Meanwhile, Nicole, you have the perspective of having read Sphinx, so you've seen that it's theoretically possible to maintain gender ambiguity (or no identity) in a text about a romance. But while that shows the possibility, I'm sure you see that the approach opted for in If On A Winter's Night... also remains valid.

[Nicole]

@Zad: I don't have a problem with the second person. I don't have a problem with the second person being masculine. I don't have a problem being Calvino's "tu" for a while (I also don't throw a book so hard that I hope to escape the limits of the known universe because a quire is misbound, so I get where he's coming from).

What I don't think is accurate or fair to say is this: if he had done it any other way, there would be no plotline, because men love and chase women and that's how it works. He's not locked into this choice -- male second person or no plot whatsoever. We are talking about the realm of the imagination, and I think it's fair to credit him with a choice.

[Zadignose]

Yes, I agree, this wasn't the only way to go.

Also, going forward, we might find other reasons to regard Calvino's choices as specifically representing a "male gaze," and he may well objectify women.

I guess we can say that he elected to tell a tale that includes a heterosexual romance, told from the perspective of a male protagonist, that a woman or women may well serve as objects of desire to this protagonist, as well as foils, threats, etc., and that he has, within this context, elected to force the reader to identify with the protagonist by calling him "you."

[Jim]

Zadignose wrote: "Yes, I agree, this wasn't the only way to go.

Also, going forward, we might find other reasons to regard Calvino's choices as specifically representing a "male gaze," and he may well objectify wom..."

A digression, but germane to this discussion:

As luck would have it, these issues are our themes for Brain Pain 2016. Instead of reading difficult books for the sake of reading difficult books, we're going to set formal contortions aside and look at thematic content - specifically books with female protagonists -- and more specifically, female protagonists which have become embedded in the psyche of western culture as specific types - Medea, Antigone, Emma Bovary, etc. Layered on top of this will be discussion of how female protagonists are portrayed by male authors and female authors. I've been saute-ing this idea for a few months and will post about it soon.

As for this book, let's not draw complete conclusions about Calvino's creative choices until we reach the week three discussion (of course, if you've finished the book, you can post there now).

[Zadignose]

Fair enough.

Let me ask a rather different question then, though the answer may not be very deep. At what point did you first laugh while reading this book? I think, for me, it was almost immediately. Certainly by the time he suggested I shout out to my family, "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" which happens in the first paragraph. It early became obvious to me (and this was the first of his books that I read) that the author is both audacious and quite silly.

[Jim]

Zadignose wrote: "Fair enough.

Let me ask a rather different question then, though the answer may not be very deep. At what point did you first laugh while reading this book? I think, for me, it was almost immediat..."

Pretty much from the first paragraph. This was also my first Calvino book, but I read it in 1983 and it inspired me to read most of his other novels.

Audacious, silly, clever, self-deprecating, but underneath the stress of life during mid-century Italian and European chaos. The life and death seriousness of his reality and that of his countrymen comes through strongly in the section Without fear of wind or vertigo.

[Nicole]

I think I laughed hardest at the lists (of which there are many: early on there's the list of other books vying for your attention and your lire in the bookstore, there's the list of places outside of which you would throw your defective book, and a ton of others). These are funny even if, like me, you have to read them several times in order to decipher the content, which I think is a testament to how funny they are.

I think what makes them, and indeed much of the book, very funny is how concrete these hypothetical scenarii are: perhaps you are riding the bus home and trying to open the sack with the book in it with one hand, or perhaps you are driving home and distracted by it, and each scenario has a ludicrous amount of specific detail, and I find them tremendously funny. I think that the second person is definitely part of that, you're not just doing things, you're doing immensely specific things, you're yelling at the people your house to turn down the tv, you're extending your legs, bending them again, and then re-extending them as you settle in with the book, you're reading on the sly at work, you're leaning back in your chair. You can imagine yourself, even your body, doing these things, and yet they are ridiculous in their specificity. It just never stops being funny for me.

I also like about this the way it mirrors for me one of the things that fiction itself does: you launch yourself into the possible with as much detail and conviction as possible, whether it happened or not is not relevant. It's as good as something that happened, maybe better. Somehow this seems to me to be one of the jobs of fiction itself. I think the meta is somehow located here at the level of the style itself, and not only on the structure or the comments to the reader. It's like he's planting his flag: here is what fiction is, here is what fiction does. It makes things out of nothing, it makes things out of words.

[Amy (Other Amy)]

Zadignose wrote: "I see the book as the ultimate show-off book, and I mean that in the most generous way possible. It's a book in which a confident and experienced author sets out demonstrate that he can get away with absolutely anything in writing a book. He attacks some ridiculous challenges, one of them being the use of second-person, and the interaction of various other narrative strategies."

I love the way you phrase this; to me it sums up the feat of the book really well.

Jim wrote: "I've been saute-ing this idea for a few months and will post about it soon."

This sounds wonderful, Jim. Looking forward to it.

Zadignose wrote: "Fair enough.

Let me ask a rather different question then, though the answer may not be very deep. At what point did you first laugh while reading this book? I think, for me, it was almost immediat..."

Immediately for me as well. It was both outrageous (reading on horseback?) and familiar (trying to get into the perfect book reading spot and position) and I loved it at once. (That's part of the reason I mention the shift to a man's POV as being jarring. It is a testament to Calvino's skill that I did not find this shift more of an obstacle to the rapport with the narrative.) I loved the lists of books in the bookstore also; I had to laugh because there is such correspondence with the strategies I use to try to tame my to-read stack here on Goodreads.

Jim wrote: "This was also my first Calvino book, but I read it in 1983 and it inspired me to read most of his other novels."

I will most definitely be reading all of his other works as well.

Nicole wrote: "I also like about this the way it mirrors for me one of the things that fiction itself does: you launch yourself into the possible with as much detail and conviction as possible, whether it happened or not is not relevant. It's as good as something that happened, maybe better. Somehow this seems to me to be one of the jobs of fiction itself. I think the meta is somehow located here at the level of the style itself, and not only on the structure or the comments to the reader. It's like he's planting his flag: here is what fiction is, here is what fiction does. It makes things out of nothing, it makes things out of words. "

I love this also. What a fantastic summary of his theme.

[Zadignose]

Having read The Uncanny recently, I'd say this was notably uncanny:

"Today I saw a hand thrust out of a window of the prison, toward the sea."

Much of what follows is also uncanny.

[Paul]

Witty, clever and thoroughly entertaining... I actually read one whole section out to someone the last time I read it simply because it was so very funny - one of my all-time favourite books that I can re-read endlessly and it never pales.

[mkfs]

I'm a little late to this one as I just couldn't get into it at first. I originally read this back in the early 90s at the suggestion of an Italian friend (actually, he said "read some Fenoglio and some Calvino", and when I later told him I had read this, he said ""not that one, it sucks") and greatly enjoyed it. Two weeks ago, I couldn't get through the train station chapter, but now I'm flying through it.

Jim wrote: "Instead of reading difficult books for the sake of reading difficult books, we're going to set formal contortions aside and look at thematic content"

gasp! the horror!

Layered on top of this will be discussion of how female protagonists are portrayed by male authors and female authors.

Like it. I've had the same discussion informally many times, but it would be nice to take a good long look at it.

Zadignose wrote:" He's putting thoughts in my mind already and making me a slave to his whims! "

I had the same reaction at that point, and then later when You ignores Lotaria in order to fixate on the sister, Ludmilla. Ludmilla is obviously uninterested and just playing games with him; go for her sister man! She seems more interested and interesting. And since it seems like every male character in this book is desperate for female acquaintance, You should take what You can get.


At what point did you first laugh while reading this book?

Each of the first two paragraphs elicited a chuckle. After that, as Nicole mentioned, the Lists of Things.

Nicole wrote: "I think what makes them, and indeed much of the book, very funny is how concrete these hypothetical scenarii are"

Very much so -- and concrete in a way that the actual "novels" are not. The numbered chapters form a sort of anchor or mooring for the reader, and the excerpts are forays into various forms of literature. Well, not exactly, maybe just into different narratives: they are too similar (and too sex-starved?) to represent different forms of literature. Always a sort of aimless, often anonymous striving.

What I am finding impressive is the ability of Calvino to interest the reader in a character or plot with just a handful of pages. I am currently reading another book trying to do the same thing (except with related characters over a long period of time: A Visit from the Goon Squad), and it is not succeeding - I find myself tiring of the characters and situations before the brief stories are even halfway finished.