If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." —from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together, the stories form a labyrinth of literature known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers pursue the story lines that intrigue them and try to read each other. Deeply profound and surprisingly romantic, this classic is a beautiful meditation on the transformative power of reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
18mentions
17people
2010–2024years
61% recommend39% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I adore Italo Calvino. Even his less popular works, like The Baron In The Trees, move me. Invisibile Cities, If on a winter’s night a traveler, are even better. That being said, I almost feel like this author is taking him too seriously. Like Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and many other authors, I think Calvino is mostly... having a laugh? If that makes sense. The overwhelming feeling across all the works is absurdity. For example, take the author's view of Invisible Cities.
> What explains the mutability of Marco Polo’s cities? A quarter of the way through the tales we learn that Marco Polo has no knowledge of Asian languages.
That's not it, I think. It's the fact that Marco Polo is bullshitting, and Kublai Khan knows it, and does not care. The whole point is that this guy is a borderline fraud, weaving tall tales, but no one cares because the stories are good. Its a comedic absurdist view, a mirror held up to fiction, basically asking, "who cares?"
- "If on a winter's night, a traveler" and "Invisible Cities" are probably his most known works but I highly recommend "Mr. Palomar", it's very small and easy to read but truly a mindbender.
- Lots of great suggestions here! I'll add "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler" by Italo Calvino. It's the only book I've ever read in the second person, an amazing and successful experiment in form. I've never found anything else like it.
I'll second the suggestion for "The City & The City", another real mind-bender.
- see my nick, but in addition to stephenson, the books i come back to over and over again for comfort and wisdom include:
- Lord of the Rings: The other bible. Not even the very wise can see all ends; be of good cheer.
- A Wrinkle In Time: 9 year old me, there is such a thing as a tesseract, and there is also Mrs. Beast.
- The Master and Margarita: apocalyptic reading from someone who knew, and a cat who always pays his way.
- the Discworld series: Sir Terry knew our hearts better than most, and sin, young feller, is treatin’ people as things.
- If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveler: a perfect joke that you can tell once, plus a love story.
- Good Omens: Gaiman and Pratchett team up, what’s not to love?
- Moby Dick: And so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.
- Lucky Jim: grad school, a survival guide. Come in on the fa la la las, there’s a good chap.
This doesn’t include poetry, which is also in my head constantly.
- A friend lent me a copy of Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler" which I would strongly recommend if you're looking for something a bit different. It's written in the second person (the protagonist is you, the reader) and is alarmingly postmodern.
- Invisible cities was too visual for me (I have a weak visual imagination, so I can't appreciate books that rely too heavily on images), but I really liked If On A Winter's Night a Traveler, and this quote reminds me that I want to read more Calvino.
Would you (or anyone else here) recommend another book of his, given those preferences/weaknesses of mine?
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