If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration—”when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded.” Italo Calvino’s novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished 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 fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: “Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade.” Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next.
The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches—stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition—with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter’s Night is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. “What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space.”
For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #25: Breaks the fourth wall)
The Reason
This was the BOTM for my in-person bookclub, and one of our member’s favorite book.
The Quotes
“What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library?”
“Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be.”
“Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my readings…if you need little to set the imagination going, I require even less: the promise of reading is enough.”
The Narrator(s)
Jefferson Mays. The narration was fine, I had no issue with it.
My Thoughts
If you are reading this for the first time, please do not read it on audiobook. I was so confused! It was only during our bookclub discussion that I realized the overarching story was interspersed with little short stories in between. I didn’t realize that and couldn’t understand why the story was jumping all over the place. Subsequently, please take my review with a grain of salt since I’m sure I missed a lot.
The things that I did get and understood; I like that it was meta. It reminded me a little of The Shadow of the Wind, which I enjoyed very much. I like that there was a focus on the reader and reading experience, but interestingly, the part that interested me most was where there was focus on the writer and the writing experience. That part made me want to write!
I’m pretty sure I missed out on a lot by listening on audio instead of on print, but either way, I feel like this is a book that gets better with more rereads. I like rereading so I’ll get to it again eventually, but probably not anytime soon.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?