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July 31, 2005
If on a winter's night a traveler
With If on a winter's night a traveler Italo Calvino explores writing about you, the reader, reading, and many recursive eddies emanating from that premise. I'm having a difficult time referring to it without getting sucked into the story, or at least the flow of some of the ideas he exposes in the book.
The humor in Calvino's storytelling saves If on a winter's night a traveler from being an unreadable exercise in virtuosity. Multilevel put ons keep you reading along with a grin even as he holds you too up for scrutiny. His metaphors hit at such a tangent many never sink in at all; those that do come back into your consciousness hours later, where you seem to understand what writing really is only when you superimpose all the story's writers over each other and hold them in comparison to the readers.
I'm amazed I made it to the end again, but have already begun to forget.
Posted by Mark at July 31, 2005 09:11 PM