If on a winter's night a traveler

Name: If on a winter's night a traveler
Author: Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino · 1979

Addressed directly to "you, the Reader," Calvino's 1979 novel begins ten different novels and completes none of them, making the experience of reading itself the subject. The game is also a love story and a philosophy of fiction. The most playful postmodern masterwork. Unique and irreplaceable.

The case against

on page 222
“now 222 pages into it: are we ever going to actually get anywhere?”
a book blog
on the structure
“the book becomes so outrageous that it sinks under its own weight”
a book blog
on the reading process
“I couldn’t help finding the reading process taxing”
four stars · a book blog
on the ten stories
“Calvino simply found a way to string together ten stories he couldn’t finish”
a book blog