If on a winter’s night a traveler (in Italian: Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore) is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The postmodern narrative, in the form of a framework story, is about the reader trying to read a book called If on a Winter Night, a traveler. Each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section of each chapter is in the second person and describes the process the reader goes through in trying to read the next chapter of the book they are reading. The second half is the first part of a new book that the reader (“you”) finds. The second half is always about something different from the previous ones. The book was published in an English translation by William Weaver in 1981.
Table of Contents
Book Summary
If on a winter night, a traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that longs for the great era of narration: “when time no longer seemed to have stopped and still did not seem to have exploded.” Italo Calvino’s novel is, in a sense, a comedy in which the two protagonists, the reader, and the other reader, finally end up married, almost ending If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a new fashion book, which begins with an exhortation: “Relax. Concentrate. Dispel any other thoughts. Let the world around you fade away.” Unfortunately, after about 30 pages, you discover that your copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing more than the first section, over and over again. Returning to the bookstore, he discovers that the volume, which he thought was from Calvin, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Polish, like the other reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be from another writer, just like the next and the next.
The real Calvin intersperses 10 different pastiches (threat, spy, mystery, premonition stories) with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings, and orient ourselves. Meanwhile, the Reader and Ludmilla try to communicate and read. If on a winter night, it is dazzling, giddy, and deeply romantic. “What makes love and reading more similar to each other is that both times and spaces are open, different from measurable time and space.
Book Review
An avant-garde novel by Italo Calvino, published in 1979 as Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore. Using changing structures, a succession of stories, and different points of view, the book proves the nature of change and chance and the interdependence of fiction and reality. The non-linear novel begins with a man who discovers that the copy of a novel he recently bought is flawed, as a Polish novel has been attached to its pages. He returns to the bookstore the next day and meets a young woman who is on an identical mission. Both profess a preference for the Polish novel. Interposed between the chapters in which the two strangers try to authenticate their texts are 10 excerpts that parody genres of contemporary world fiction, such as the Latin American novel and the political novel from Eastern Europe.
About The Author of The Book Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. He was a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best-known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979).
His style is not easy to classify; much of his writing has an air reminiscent that of fantastical fairy tales (Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics), although sometimes his writing is more “realistic” and in the scenic mode of observation (Difficult Loves, for example). Some of his writing has been called postmodern, reflecting on literature and the act of reading, while some have been labeled magical realist, others fable, and others simply “modern”. He wrote: “My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all, I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler PDF
