If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

Italo Calvino's masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book's central character. <br /><br />Based on a witty analogy between the reader's desire to finish the story and the lover's desire to consummate his or her passion, <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveller</i> is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book, <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveller</i> by Italo Calvino, of course, are constantly and comically frustrated. In between chasing missing chapters of the book, the hapless readers tangle with an international conspiracy, a rogue translator, an elusive novelist, a disintegrating publishing house, and several oppressive governments. The result is a literary labyrinth of storylines that interrupt one another—an <i>Arabian Nights</i> of the postmodern age.

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