4mo Victor Villas
cover
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler [Book] Douban Skybridge
9.5 (10 ratings) author: Italo Calvino translator: William Weaver publishing house: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1982 - 10
Italo Calvino imagines a novel capable of endless mutations in this intricately crafted story about writing and readers.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another.

finished reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveler 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
So ingenious. A really captivating read. The later half of the book veers into Invisible Cities territory with some surreal settings but overall the story has such a relatability, and Calvino knows it and plays with the reader self identification, it’s surprisingly fun.

Maybe Calvino got a little bit too “excited” on the sexual relationships here and there… and perhaps this book won’t be as enjoyable from a vantage point other than a cishet male; it’s the work of novelist man in the 70’s after all.