Review: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A Tale of Two Reviews

After finishing the book, I looked up and searched deep in my memory to find if I ever read a book that I liked and enjoyed that much or if any of my previous reading experiences came even close to this one. Most, if not all, other fiction books would pale in comparison with this book. It can be argued that it has everything a reader would hope to find in a fiction work and I think I'll have a tough time picking the next fiction book to read where the narrative follows the ordinary well-trodden path that will probably feel boring now. One of the most solid 5-star rating I gave to a book.

It's a profound piece of work that can't be described without giving away the pleasure of experiencing it; maintaining the excitement and promise that comes with the expectation of the first sentence and prolonging them with such a skilful and creative way of writing, capturing the essence of reading pleasure along the way. A clever, thought-provoking, and witty book about books, reading, and writing. For most of the time, I would raise my head for few minutes every couple of sentences to think about what I read and link it to my past experiences and pleasures or conjure future stories, I thoroughly enjoyed savouring and chewing it slowly, and I think most readers would do, given the right mood and frame-of-mind.

I haven't seen many myself so I'm trying to look into other cases where second person narrative was used, but this one was almost perfect, and keeping its momentum for that long required such a mastery of the art that propels Calvino to the shortlist of top creative writers in modern age, though sometimes a reader might find it difficult to yield to the wit of the writer. I can't help but think as well about who Calvino is; is he Flannery, or is he Marana? Sometimes I think he got the best of both.

However, I can also understand this review, by another me, in a different place and time:

I think I will never fathom how on earth could a writer pull such a lazy stunt of literary nothingness; sometimes I have to raise my hands in the air and admit that some things are beyond me. A fiction where nothing happens but nonetheless carries on for 260 odd pages and some readers, somehow, manage to finish it. I wonder as well how can any reader keep going on with the type of lazy second person narrative that shows such a condescension and self-absorption.

Can't any writer fill pages and pages with something like:
"I can write a review or I may decide not to. If I write someone might read it and another one might skim through the lines and others decide to do without it altogether. You, reader, might love, like, hate, or loathe it, you might be reading it in the underground or sitting on a sofa or lying in a bed, on a computer, or phone, or .....", and so on inking pages and pages, wasting our time and adding to our frustration.

In addition to writing first chapters, playing around with contrasts and opposites here seems to be another obsession of the writer, but also an easy way of filling pages if the publishers keep ringing every day and you can't meet deadlines. It's easy; write something and its opposite then highlight the contrast and don't forget to add the deep contemplative touch.

Stay away from this experimental book, unless you have nothing better to do than wasting your time with a megalomaniac self-obsessed writer who thinks he's so smart when he sets everything to go in circles. I got the feeling at times that he wanted to capture the spirit of his character Marana and spoil the act of reading forever.

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