Published 1979, Se una notte d’unverno un viaggiatore
Translated from Italian to English by William Weaver 1981
Published by Vintage Books London 1998
260 pages
Grade: is difficult to say this is not an ordinary book.
Will I read more by Italo Calvino: yes
Genre: difficult to say, it’s a book on literature
Keywords: reader, writer, relationship reader writer, books,
When you read a book, you read the story the author wants to tell you, that is the relationship we are used to experience as readers. In this book the author speaks directly to YOU, THE READER, like an equal and explains things, that is not the usual way in a reader-author relationship.
This book is divided into 12 chapters, each chapter has two parts, in the first part the author speaks directly to you, the reader, the second part of each chapter is part of a book or story that has been lost, misplaced, not inserted correctly in the book. The READER, a man, and the same person throughout the book is looking for the real books and meet the OTHER READER, Ludmilla and her sister. They have a friend who is a NON-READER. There is also a translator filled with falsehood.
The different book chapters gave me a feeling of reading several books simultaneously. The author talks directly to the READER as well as the atmosphere in the stories has a magical tone to it, no time period is mentioned, in the first: a provincial trains station; the second story: Poland, another in Japan; covered in haziness, but there is talk about computer reading of books.
The first chapter is a hilarious description on how to buy a book (Italo Calvino’s new book, the first in 6 years); there is a description of at least 21 different kinds of books in the bookshop you enter and have to cross before reaching the counter to buy “if on a winter’s night a Traveler”: from books you need not read, books made for purposes other than reading, books you’ve always pretended to have read and now it’s time to sit down and really read them and various others.
There is only one kind of books missing from his list in my opinion: the books with a nice smell, I like that and that is one reason I do not read books on an electronic device; I want a physical book and I want to smell the book - new or old!
The author tells you how to read his book: turn off the TV, tell people not to disturb you, find the most comfortable position: put your feet on a cushion or two (I always do that, you do not have to tell me!)
Several funny stories: the sultan’s wife must never remain without books that please her: a clause in the marriage contract.
There is whole chapter on banned books.
Here I will put some of the quotes I thought were significant:
Reader that you are, from the first page, when, though pleased with the precision of this writing, you sensed that, to tell the truth, everything was slipping through the fingers; perhaps it was the fault of the translation, you told yourself, which may very well be faithful but certainly doesn’t render the solid substance these terms must have in the original language (page 37).
Reading is always there: there is this thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid, material object, which cannot be changed, and through this thing we measure ourselves against something else that is not present, something else that belongs to the immaterial, invisible world, because it can only be thought, imagined or because it was once and is no longer, past, lost, unattainable, in the land of the dead…. Or that is not present yet because it does not yet exist, something desired, feared, possible or impossible (page 72)
The novel I would most like to read at this moment, should have as its driving force only the desire to narrate, to pile stories upon stories, without trying to impose a philosophy of life on you, simply allowing you to observe its own growth, like a tree, an entangling, as if of branches and leaves (page 92)
True books for him remain others, those of the time when for him they were messages from the other worlds (page 101)
The author was an invisible point from which the books came (page 102)
The privileged relationship with books which is peculiar to the reader (page 115)
I expect readers to read in my books something I did not know, but I expect it only from those who expect to read something they didn’t know (page 185)
A suitably programmed computer can read a novel in a few minutes and record the list of all the words contained in the text, in order of frequency (page 186)
At the end this is a love story between the READER and the OTHER READER, reading their bodies.
My thoughts:
It is an unusual book, but I enjoyed it being different; as a reader it was interesting to read how an author looks upon his craft and his readers. Parts of the book was really funny with me laughing out loudly.
On the translation, the English flowed naturally but I do not know Italian to feel if that language flows into the English text. The English is on a high level, I had to look up only few words, like for instance: peregrinations - it means a long journey, I wonder if an easier word could have been used or also in the Italian text such a fancy word was used.
It took me more than a week to read the book, having to go back and reread passages, all together it was worth my while.
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