[Review] If on a Winter's night a Traveler -- Italo Calvino

I first ran across Calvino when montacute loaned me her copy of Invisible Cities, but that book gave just a taste of Calvino. I wanted something more substantial and thus set about reading If on a winter's night a traveler.

I can understand now why people rave about Italo Calvino. The book is an incredibly creative weaving of narrative about reading books and chapters of the books read. I've never read a book so much about the pleasures of reading. The only complaint I have is that the genius of the first chapter was never really matched by any other. Not that the others weren't good, but how can you beat this description of the Reader (you) picking up his copy of If on a winter's night a traveler?

...you have forced your way through the shop past the barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. ... Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:

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.

That is just the beginning of the book and I realized at that point that this man knows me! Calvino understands what it is to be a Reader!

One of the remarkable aspects of IOAWNAT was how the nature of the characters in the main narrative were mirrored in the style of writing of the chapters. The stark contrast between Ludmilla the "ideal" reader and her sister Lotaria who believes a book can be understood in the details, in the words chosen, in the frequency of words used, is mirrored in the vagueness or detail of the fragmentary books. And at some point the boundary between the two streams, the main narrative and the trail of opening chapters, begins to blur. The Reader is drawn into the Nefarious Plot!

This was an excellent and fun read, allowing a great deal of creativity for the author. After several chapters, the pattern of broken narratives does become a little trite, but it is still interesting to see the wide range of narratives in one cover. The whole book is full of meta-levels, and while never unclear, it is playfully self-reflexive. I didn't gain any great new perspectives, but this is nonetheless a book I can recommend.