If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino.
Calvino turns the novel form on its head as he weaves in and out of personas and storylines. Chapter one of the novel starts out speaking directly to the reader, inviting you in:
You are about to begin reading Italo Calvion’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveller. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, “No, I don’t want to watch TV?” Raise your voice—they won’t hear you otherwise—“I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!”
Before you know it, the “you" has transformed into part of the story, by the speaker:
Perhaps you started leafing through the book already in the shop. Or were you unable to, because it was wrapped in its cocoon of cellophane? Now you are on the bus, standing in the crowd, hanging from a strap by your arm, and you begin undoing the package with your free hand, making movements something like a monkey, a monkey who wants to peel a banana and at the same time cling to the bough.
The end of chapter one finds “you”, the reader, about to begin the actual chapter “If on a winter’s night a traveller.” But following that actual chapter, the numbered chapter two returns to the narrator interrupting to speak again to the reader. Or does he? Because here, you realise the narrator is actually referring to himself as the “you”:
You have now read about thirty pages and you’re becoming caught up in the story. At a certain point you remark: This sentence sounds somehow familiar. In fact, this whole passage reads like something I’ve read before.” … Wait a minute! Look at the page number. From page 32 you’ve gone back to page 17! The printer has inadvertently inserted the same pages twice. The mistake occurred as they were binding the volume. It’s the sort of accident that occurs every now and then.
But the rest of the speaker’s book consists entirely of repeats of pages 17 through 32! The narrator must track down an original copy of the novel. However, just when he thinks he’s found it, he reads the first chapter (which you get to read as well) and it turns out to be a completely different story!
Calvino alternates between these narrator segments and the “novel beginnings” until it is clear that the “novel beginnings” are simply fictional interludes—short stories in and of themselves, interrupted always at a climactic moment—between segments of the actual story, which is of the narrator and his quest to find the original volume he began reading.
At the heart of it, this book is an inquisition into the origins of a book, its author and its reader. What makes a good story? Should the author write for his own pleasure or for the pleasure of the readers? Is there such a thing as a stupendous story? If there is one, can it be automatically churned out by a computer by dissecting the anatomy of all stories written so far?
These are the kind of questions that Calvino pursues through this most artistic creation.
And then, perhaps at the heart of this inquisition is the inquiry into personalities of both the reader and the writer. There are primarily two kinds of writers - the productive writer and the tormented writer, who are the opposite of each other in many, if not all, ways. The productive writer cranks out line after line of a growing manuscript that is deemed to be a best-seller. The tormented writer chews his fingernails, scratches his head, crumples up drafts, takes frequent breaks to fix himself a snack, copies an already written page, and ends the day by noting down decisive ideas of where he plans to take the story.
The productive writer never liked the ways of the tormented writer, but can't help feeling admiration for the tormented writer, who seems on the verge of finding that obscure but enlightening idea through his struggles. The tormented writer never liked the productive writer; he considers him no more than a clever craftsman who churns out machine-made novels catering to the taste of the public. Yet, he feels envy for the productive writer, who expresses himself with such methodical self-confidence.
In the end, the productive writer wants to write like a tormented writer, and the latter like the former. How closer to the truth can Calvino be in digging out these feelings from within us; and this comes not in the form of dense philosophy, but as another story with the most light-hearted, comical characters.
And, then, of course, there's the reader, who is the protagonist of the book. But, there are also other readers, who are also part of the story, and there are uneasy romantic relationships between these readers, and even between the writers and the readers. There is the notion of a perfect reader for whom both types of writers now want to cater to. Through these comical episodes, Calvino captures the essence of our being --- our quest to attain what we don't possess.
This is captured most lyrically in a short repartee between the productive writer and one of his visitors. The productive writer says to a visitor:
With my spyglass I can observe a woman who is reading on a terrace in the valley. I wonder if the books she reads are calming or upsetting..
How does the woman seem to you? Calm or upset?, asks the visitor.
Calm..
Then she is reading upsetting books..
This is a story about the creation of a story. It is also a story about the life of the story after it has been created. It is also a story about the readers of the story, about the politicians who may censor a story, about the revolutionaries who fight these politicians, and about the counter-revolutionaries who fight the revolutionaries.
But, it is also a story that contains a string of short (albeit incomplete) stories. Calvino manages to meld these seemingly unrelated ideas, to produce a work of art that is poetic, lyrical, profound and comical all at the same time. And the story does have a perfect ending; perhaps that is the only ending that would do justice to the rest of the book.
I found myself smiling and laughing aloud throughout as Calvino’s prose dives, curls back on itself, turns and soars.
I hope you enjoy the book when you get it.
