These are crazy days

My most recent acquisition has been If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino. I have not capitalized the words that should be so because they never appear that way when the title is cited in the book itself. Hence, I don't feel obliged to? Though it bothers me like hell. But if Calvino isn't going to bother doing it himself, well!



The book is about... well, it's about two things. It is a collection of many short stories, all which give you a perfunctory taste of them, bound together by a back narrative of you, 'Reader', who simply wants to finish one of the novels, but is constantly being given snippets of false manuscripts, each intriguing, till the search is really no longer for 'If on a winter's night a traveler' (the first 'manuscript') it is for 'Around an empty grave or 'In a network of lines that enlace' or even 'Without fear of wind or vertigo'. You see? Anyway, what makes the book so notable is the fact that it uses as successfully as really is possible the third person narrative, that as opposed to saying "I did it" or "Sam did it" or whatever, it's "you did it". And for the most part, it never breaks that narrative, though it does sometimes, but cut him some slack--could you write a book like that? Maybe if you're in MENSA (incidentally, I borrowed this from Marky Mark). It's a really difficult style to write in. He also switches to Ludmilla's view (the female protagonist, the 'Other Reader') in the same style, which is kind of cool. Especially for female readers who may not be as drawn in, because it's fairly clear the 'Reader' is intended male.
It was an interesting book, in said style and for other reasons. It was intriguing, though it was predictable--not the stories themselves (which escalated in weirdness to almost the very last one) but the fact that oh, well, he's not going to finish the thing and he's going to get something new, damn it. So my mind started to stop being as invested in the interludes, because you know, what's the point? But that's not to say the interludes weren't good in themselves. Yes, they could have fit into something larger, but they worked well as their own short stories. There's only one or two I have real problems with.


I know you've been hearing this a lot from me lately, but I love the opening. Not necessarily the opening line, but that first bit--it's not quite a prologue, but it's not exactly what I'd call the first chapter, even though it is labeled as such... "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. 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!' Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: 'I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!' Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone" (3). Of course, this bit goes on for several pages (about six), telling you how you are, and honestly you're believing it, and sort of guiding you clearly in your mind, if not actually physically making you do what it suggests--that is, stretching out, making sure you have your cigarettes nearby, and so on. But it's probably one of the quickest ways to get someone involved in the text, of course, like was said, one of the hardest ways to work.

In the second chapter, an item I assume is a juke box is referred to as a "vibrant silence-killing machine" (12). Which is a very pretty turn of phrase, there.

"'Between Ozkarts and Kauderers peace lasts only from one funeral to the next, and the hatchet is not buried, but our dead are buried and we write on their graves: This was the Ozkarts' doing'" (40).

Oh, and I guess I should mention this, though I can't recall if it has arisen in the text, and I didn't bother marking it since it seemed obvious to me, though of course it's not obvious to everyone. The author is clearly Italian, and the book was translated from Italian. Often he mentions something like 'she spoke with the informal tu' or some such. Though I hated Italian class and managed a C average all three years and remember little more than how to say hotel (albergo), I do remember this. There are several forms of the word you, as in, you all, you all formal, you formal, you informal. (I believe this phenomena also exists in Spanish, and any other Latin-based language, I'd assume.) I can't remember what formal 'you' is, but informal is tu. Which would be the 'you' you use around friends and family, so when this lady (and other ladies, it tends to always be the women in this book) uses it when they meet for the first time it's kind of--not shocking, but strange. So. Yeah. In case you were wondering or planning on reading this...

"'...I wish the things I read weren't all present, so solid you can touch them; I would like to feel a presence around them, something else, you don't quite know what, the sign of some unknown thing...'" (46). Well, who likes a book about the contemporary anyway? Something new is much better than a dull recounting of what you know (though, fairly, I suppose there are those who much prefer and go searching for those books because unfortunately, they do exist). And I suppose yes, some books that I favor were contemporary at some point, but even so there's something unusual or different, even though at first glance or read it doesn't seem to be so fantastical. The best example hails from someone I am not as likely to favor, however... If I may step out onto a weak branch, I'm going to throw the baton to Charles Dickens--my brief consumption of his works and rudimentary knowledge of said works leads me to believe that a good portion of his writings relate to impoverished children/people. Well, okay, contemporary because there certainly were a lot of folks like that and still continue to be--but even so, there's a lot of ingredients that keep them from being a dull recounting of the times. I have in mind Great Expectations, by the way. I hate to go into it now, so surely you can google a synopsis or read it. (LOOK EMMA I'M RECOMMENDING CHARLES DICKENS.) That certainly was an oddity of events of contemporary times but with roots still in what was most likely a common situation--if you see what I mean? Maybe? Emma will have to check me on this one. Though even if I'm wrong it proves I respect him, even if him and I duke it out on a regular basis.

"'Me? I don't read books!' Irnerio says. 'What do you read, then?' 'Nothing. I've become so accustomed to not reading that I don't even read what appears before my eyes. It's not easy: they teach us to read as children, and for the rest of our lives we remain the slaves of all the written stuff they fling in front of us. I may have had to make some effort myself, at first, to learn not to read, but now it comes quite naturally to me. The secret is not refusing to look at the written words. On the contrary, you must look at them, intensely, until they disappear'" (49). Look me in the eye and tell me this doesn't look like it belongs in Catch-22. There's a scene later, very surreal, (which I didn't mark) where the Reader attempts to pull of a woman's clothes several times only to discover another layer beneath each previous layer. Eventually, he manages to get to the last set of clothes, and reveals her almost completely nude body. He says something like 'you wear so many uniforms, but you're naked now!' and she responds with something along the lines of 'No, this body is a uniform as well'. Well, whatever, my point is that she sounds very much like Julia from 1984. So... just thought I'd bring that up...

My favorite interlude is the 'excerpt' from Leaning from the steep slope. It tells of a convict trying to escape his prison (and eventually doing so) while circling a lady of the seaside town where his prison resides. I suppose it could be argued, maybe, that Calvino included such a broad array of stories not only to frustrate the Reader and of course move the story along and be the whole rudder to the story in the first place, but in the hopes of including at least one that leaves the actual reader of the story the you you, not the Reader you--the other you--intrigued and wanting to read on, though of course you can. So in some degree you can relate to the other Reader you. Leaning from the steep slope is the one I'd want nothing more than to read in its fictional completion.

"I took this dialogue as a warning to be on guard: the world is falling apart and tries to lure me into its disintegration" (64).

I hated Looks down in the gathering shadow. It's set in France, and a man and a woman are attempting to dispose of a body. That I followed rather well, I mean, that's pretty straightforward. Then, two-thirds of the way through, the main character of the story starts talking about how his daughter was a dancer who dances (or possibly has sex) with crocodiles. And then a kid has a tub of crocodiles and then the body of the dead man is gone. What.

"I would like to be able to write a book that is only an incipit, that maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning, the expectation still not focused on an object. But how could such a book be constructed? Would it break off after the first paragraph? Would the preliminaries be prolonged indefinitely? Would it set the beginning of one tale inside another, as in the Arabian Nights?" (177). Oh, Italo Calvino, I see what you did there. (Because this very book is essentially a little bit of--all of that, in a way.)

"His head is oblong horizontally, like a dirigible, and seems to hide many things behind the convexity of its brow" (180). I literally laughed out loud when I read this.

On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon was another interlude that was just strange. I followed it easily enough, you'd have to be a fool not to follow this one successfully, but it was really weird. So this guy goes to live and work for a Japanese fellow (in Japan) and starts feeling... amorous towards his daughter. Then, he has sex with the Japanese fellow's wife, while both the daughter and the Japanese fellow come into the room and watch. That's not even the weirdest part--it was like a bad fanfiction. The sex part, I mean. Even Stephen King knows when to cut it off. I got a little put off with what transpired sexually. And by a little, I mean, I was weirded out like it was nobody's business.

Well, apparently I forgot to mark my favorite part, or accidentally pulled its marker out. It any case, my favorite scene happens relatively early on in which Ludmilla gets agitated by a book club trying to figure out the deeper meanings of the text, the metaphors, the allusions and so on--and she says something like, 'I could care less for all of that, I just want to read the book!' Though sometimes it is--dare I say it--rather fun to delve into and pursue that kind of thing, most of the time I have that attitude as well. I'd rather just enjoy the thing, okay? If it's necessary to know to understand the book, sure I'll sit through it, but come on, don't grate me here. Then, of course, on the other hand, there are books--actually only one--that I've wanted to read because I know about its symbols and metaphors, and those are what hooked me. The book in question is Ulysses by James Joyce. The whole book is--as I understand it--a 'modern-day' (well, modern in the terms of the last century) retelling of The Odyssey. Marky Mark sort of got into what symbolized what else between the two texts and I fell in love. But... of course, that may as well be the exception that makes the rule, there. I probably would have read it anyway, because what a cool name, but I probably wouldn't enjoy it in the same way--you know? If I even enjoy it the first time I do read it with knowing what I know... uh... wow. Where exactly did my topic go? Anyone? Help?


So, yes. Let's see, I guess I'm done there. The only news-worthy things are that... Well, I'm officially going to college, as in, I have a dorm and all that jazz. Yayyy. And, I found a 1910 copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray that's actually in rather lovely condition. So... Yup.