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A review by nhborg
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
4.0
4.25
«I would like to be able to write a book that is only the incipit, that maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning, the expectation still not focused on an object.»
Such a unique read. I find it incredible and absurd that the content of this novel can be contained within these 250 pages. It only goes to show how remarkable of a medium books are.
—!— The following part of the review will spoil the setup of the novel, giving an impression of how the reading experience is like and which overall themes you can expect. If you’d like to head into it completely blind for all of the surprises, you should stop here. —!—
The book opens with a «You» protagonist sitting down to start reading the book «If on a winter’s night a traveler» by Italo Calvino. «You» read about 30 pages and become engaged in the story, before you realize that your book copy is corrupted and lack the continuation of the story. You go back to the book store from which you bought it to ask for a new, intact copy. Here you also meet another Reader in the same situation as you. You bring the new copy back home but realize that it is a completely different book, this one also missing everything apart from the opening. You contact the Other Reader and begin to hunt down the uninterrupted story together. This takes you on a journey through a myriad of different stories and genres, a transcending love story, a socio-political scheme, and a narrative in which you, the real you, is the protagonist.
This is a highly metafictive and experimental work. I was reminded of «Sophie’s world», «The Trial», and how I imagine «What you’re looking for is in the library» is like. It felt like the most unique fiction essay reflecting over the value of literature, the role of the reader and the writer, book censorship, fraud, free will vs. fate, and more. At times I got lost in the book and forgot everything about my own time and space. On one hand it could be exhausting and demanding to read, on the other hand gripping and continuously intriguing because of the new beginnings.
The reading experience was challenged and stimulated by the fact that every time you picked it back up it was almost literally a new book. Italo Calvino displays his impressive writing capacity and literary insight by juggling the genres and prompts, capturing their generic essence while adding his own uniqueness to them. I kept getting surprised by the complete style shifts from one story to another and how convincing the genre-specific writing style was. Each story offered its own reflection on the topic of reading, story-telling or narrative.
«I’m producing too many stories at once because what I want is for you to feel, around the story, the saturation of other stories that I could tell and maybe will tell or who knows may already have told on some other occasion, a space full of stories that perhaps is simply my lifetime»
At some point I even identified a representation of my usual favorite genre, and I was made aware of how easily I’m swayed by its usual narrative tricks. Nonetheless, I also obtained another formulation about what I like to read about: How an inner worldview is reflected in your relationship with other people or the world/nature around you; how your inner myths become visible in the symbolism you notice in everyday life.
Another discussion I found within the book was that of the book publishing industry and seemingly «fast fashion» writing - books that are produced to demand the reader’s attention all the way though instead of giving room for fluctuating thoughts as part of the reading process. In this sense it mirrors other modern media of which primary purpose is entertainment and the entrapment of our focus into continued consumerism. I personally still feel like reading books (of all kinds) is a far cry from scrolling short-form content, but it seems like Italo Calvino wanted to point out what he experienced as a gradual change in literary culture.
«Isn’t it like her to insist that now one can ask of the novel only to stir a depth of buried anguish, as the final condition of truth which will save it from being an assembly-line product, a destiny it can no longer escape?»
Perhaps more relevant is the thematization of book censorship, a topic which gained renewed attention due to recent shocking headlines. Reading is an invaluable way to cultivate and develop our mindset and personality, and the restriction of what people can read is a restriction of who they can be. The most brave and important works are often the most vulnerable.
«We can prevent reading: but in the decree that forbids reading there will be still read something of the truth that we would wish never to be read…»
Additionally, I was surprised to see «fake news» as a prominent topic even in this work from 1979. The novel introduces a web of fraud in which one falsehood counters another and reality and fiction are intertangled until they’re indistinguishable.
«We’re in a country where everything that can be falsified has been falsified: paintings in museums, gold ingots, bus tickets. The counterrevolution and the revolution fight with salvos of falsification: the result is that nobody can be sure what is true and what is false, the political police simulate revolutionary actions and the revolutionaries disguise themselves as policemen.»
Lastly, apart from the politics, I have to highlight the exploration of what it means to write and what it means to read; any person who is fond of any of these activities will feel seen by this novel. I won’t go into details because there’s simply too much that could have been discussed and because I believe it is best explored on one’s own. Here are some quotes that resonated with me:
«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 and incommunicable»
«She was the winner, it was her always curious, always insatiable reading that managed to uncover truths hidden in the most barefaced fake, and falsity with no attenuating circumstances in words claiming to be the most truthful.»
So what are you waiting for? You mark «If on a winter’s night a traveler» by Italo Calvino as want-to-read on Goodreads and promise yourself to give it a try in the future.
Side note: I’ve read so many good books lately (wohoo), but the more well-written unique works I read in a row, the more I struggle to fit them into my star rating system. For something to be 5 stars it has to be exhilarating for me upon the first read or establish itself as a core part of me upon a re-read. 4.25 is a relatively vague rating that just indicates that it is definitely a good book (4) that had an obvious, extra spark (.25). It makes sense in my head, but it still feels weird to look at the rating of my recent reads. Anyway, just wanted to address my own confusion.
«I would like to be able to write a book that is only the incipit, that maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning, the expectation still not focused on an object.»
Such a unique read. I find it incredible and absurd that the content of this novel can be contained within these 250 pages. It only goes to show how remarkable of a medium books are.
—!— The following part of the review will spoil the setup of the novel, giving an impression of how the reading experience is like and which overall themes you can expect. If you’d like to head into it completely blind for all of the surprises, you should stop here. —!—
The book opens with a «You» protagonist sitting down to start reading the book «If on a winter’s night a traveler» by Italo Calvino. «You» read about 30 pages and become engaged in the story, before you realize that your book copy is corrupted and lack the continuation of the story. You go back to the book store from which you bought it to ask for a new, intact copy. Here you also meet another Reader in the same situation as you. You bring the new copy back home but realize that it is a completely different book, this one also missing everything apart from the opening. You contact the Other Reader and begin to hunt down the uninterrupted story together. This takes you on a journey through a myriad of different stories and genres, a transcending love story, a socio-political scheme, and a narrative in which you, the real you, is the protagonist.
This is a highly metafictive and experimental work. I was reminded of «Sophie’s world», «The Trial», and how I imagine «What you’re looking for is in the library» is like. It felt like the most unique fiction essay reflecting over the value of literature, the role of the reader and the writer, book censorship, fraud, free will vs. fate, and more. At times I got lost in the book and forgot everything about my own time and space. On one hand it could be exhausting and demanding to read, on the other hand gripping and continuously intriguing because of the new beginnings.
The reading experience was challenged and stimulated by the fact that every time you picked it back up it was almost literally a new book. Italo Calvino displays his impressive writing capacity and literary insight by juggling the genres and prompts, capturing their generic essence while adding his own uniqueness to them. I kept getting surprised by the complete style shifts from one story to another and how convincing the genre-specific writing style was. Each story offered its own reflection on the topic of reading, story-telling or narrative.
«I’m producing too many stories at once because what I want is for you to feel, around the story, the saturation of other stories that I could tell and maybe will tell or who knows may already have told on some other occasion, a space full of stories that perhaps is simply my lifetime»
At some point I even identified a representation of my usual favorite genre, and I was made aware of how easily I’m swayed by its usual narrative tricks. Nonetheless, I also obtained another formulation about what I like to read about: How an inner worldview is reflected in your relationship with other people or the world/nature around you; how your inner myths become visible in the symbolism you notice in everyday life.
Another discussion I found within the book was that of the book publishing industry and seemingly «fast fashion» writing - books that are produced to demand the reader’s attention all the way though instead of giving room for fluctuating thoughts as part of the reading process. In this sense it mirrors other modern media of which primary purpose is entertainment and the entrapment of our focus into continued consumerism. I personally still feel like reading books (of all kinds) is a far cry from scrolling short-form content, but it seems like Italo Calvino wanted to point out what he experienced as a gradual change in literary culture.
«Isn’t it like her to insist that now one can ask of the novel only to stir a depth of buried anguish, as the final condition of truth which will save it from being an assembly-line product, a destiny it can no longer escape?»
Perhaps more relevant is the thematization of book censorship, a topic which gained renewed attention due to recent shocking headlines. Reading is an invaluable way to cultivate and develop our mindset and personality, and the restriction of what people can read is a restriction of who they can be. The most brave and important works are often the most vulnerable.
«We can prevent reading: but in the decree that forbids reading there will be still read something of the truth that we would wish never to be read…»
Additionally, I was surprised to see «fake news» as a prominent topic even in this work from 1979. The novel introduces a web of fraud in which one falsehood counters another and reality and fiction are intertangled until they’re indistinguishable.
«We’re in a country where everything that can be falsified has been falsified: paintings in museums, gold ingots, bus tickets. The counterrevolution and the revolution fight with salvos of falsification: the result is that nobody can be sure what is true and what is false, the political police simulate revolutionary actions and the revolutionaries disguise themselves as policemen.»
Lastly, apart from the politics, I have to highlight the exploration of what it means to write and what it means to read; any person who is fond of any of these activities will feel seen by this novel. I won’t go into details because there’s simply too much that could have been discussed and because I believe it is best explored on one’s own. Here are some quotes that resonated with me:
«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 and incommunicable»
«She was the winner, it was her always curious, always insatiable reading that managed to uncover truths hidden in the most barefaced fake, and falsity with no attenuating circumstances in words claiming to be the most truthful.»
So what are you waiting for? You mark «If on a winter’s night a traveler» by Italo Calvino as want-to-read on Goodreads and promise yourself to give it a try in the future.
Side note: I’ve read so many good books lately (wohoo), but the more well-written unique works I read in a row, the more I struggle to fit them into my star rating system. For something to be 5 stars it has to be exhilarating for me upon the first read or establish itself as a core part of me upon a re-read. 4.25 is a relatively vague rating that just indicates that it is definitely a good book (4) that had an obvious, extra spark (.25). It makes sense in my head, but it still feels weird to look at the rating of my recent reads. Anyway, just wanted to address my own confusion.