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If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (Vintage classics)
 
 

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (Vintage classics) (Paperback)

by Italo Calvino (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (1 Nov 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099430894
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099430896
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 6,138 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Calvino, Italo

Product Description

Salman Rushdie, London Review of Books

'I can think of no finer writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends’


Lorna Sage, Observer

‘A devastating, wonderfully ingenious parody of all those dreary best-sellers… take it with you next time you plan to travel in an armchair’

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Customer Reviews

27 Reviews
5 star:
 (16)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars If on a winter';s night, 28 Dec 2005
By E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
One definition of metafiction is "Fiction that deals, often playfully and self-referentially, with the writing of fiction or its conventions." That could pretty much describe Italo Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler," a gloriously surreal story about the hunt for a mysterious book.

A reader opens Italo Calvino's latest novel, "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller," only to have the story cut short. Turns out it was a defective copy, with another book's pages inside. But as the reader tries to find out what book the defective pages belong to, he keeps running into even more books and more difficulties -- as well as the beautiful Ludmilla, a fellow reader who also received a defective book.

With Ludmilla assisting him (and, he hopes, going to date him), the reader then explores obscure dead languages, publishers' shops, bizarre translators and various other obstacles. All he wants is to read an intriguing book. But he keeps stumbling into tales of murder and sorrow, annoying professors, and the occasional radical feminist -- and a strange literary conspiracy. Will he ever finish the book?

In its own way, "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler" is a mystery story, a satire, a romance, and a treasure hunt. Any book whose first chapter explains how you're supposed to read it has got to be a winner -- "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, "If On A Winter's Night a Traveler." Relax. Concentrate." And so on, with Calvino gently joking and chiding the reader before actually beginning his strange little tale.

As cute as that first chapter is, it also sets the tone for this strange, funny metafictional tale, which not only inserts Calvino but the reader. That's right -- this book is written in the second person, with the reader as the main character. "You did this" and "you did that," and so on. Only a few authors are brave enough to insert the reader... especially in a novel about a novel that contains other novels. It seems like a subtle undermining of reality itself.

It's a bit disorienting when Calvino inserts chapters from the various books that "you" unearth -- including ghosts, hidden identities, Mexican duels, Japanese erotica, and others written in the required styles. Including some cultures that he made up. Upon further reading, those isolated chapters reveal themselves to be almost as intriguing as the literary hunt. Especially since each one cuts off at the most suspenseful moment -- what happens next? Nobody knows!

It all sounds hideously confusing, but Calvino's deft touch and sense of humor keep it from getting too weird. There are moments of wink-nudge comedy, as well as the occasional poke at the publishing industry. But Calvino also provides chilling moments, mildly sexy ones, and a tone of mystery hangs over the whole novel.

At times it feels like Calvino is in charge of "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler"... and at other times, it feels like "you" are the one at the wheel. Just don't put this in the stack of Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First. Pure literary genius.

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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Clever, but one for the post-modernists, 7 Nov 2007
I bought this book having seen it mentioned in various lists for 'Greatest Books of the 20th Century'. If you are a fan of the post-modernist novel then this should please you as it plays with the structure of the novel and with ideas of literary conventions in a very smart way. Calvino was clearly ahead of his time because authors like Peter Carey have clearly borrowed the convention in books examining the act of writing books. If you are a real literary 'nut' or member of the post-modernist cognoscenti then you should enjoy the way that the book leads you along various twists and turns, forensically examining the nature of writing and the fallacy of the novel.

I personally found the book to be a little too clever and I never felt drawn into the self-referential world that is created by the central quest of the book. I greatly admire the intellectual trapeze act, but was left feeling a little cold.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Journey, 26 May 2003
By J. Skade "joeskade" (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Calvino once described a young readers first acquaintance with Stendhal's 'Charterhouse at Parma' and how they are overwhelmed by the first pages recognising the novel they had always wanted to read; how the novel then develops along different lines becoming a multiplicity of novels. He could have been describing this novel. The reader is immediately arrested by the opening chapter in which 'the reader' buys a copy of 'If On A Winters Night A Traveller' by Italo Calvino. The whole description is more engaging and a lot funnier than you might think. The chapter seems to herald a whole new kind of novel. The remainder of the novel follows a number of different directions, but it is the first chapter which remains in the mind most clearly.
It is a novel about novels - usually the most tedious of postmodernist cliches, yet this novel centres on reading rather than writing. The unnamed reader begins a number of novels which for increasingly bizarre reasons he is unable to continue. He meets a fellow reader, Ludmilla with whom he joins in the quest to find these lost novels and with whom he begins a romance. On his quest he encounters publishers and academics a literary forger, censors - in fact pretty much every element of the literature industry ( including a non-reader who uses books to create sculptures), yet he remains the pure disinterested reader.
The book is packed tight with ideas and jokes plus some marvellous literary pastiches - my favourite being the erotic japanese novel.
Calvino belongs to the worlds of Sterne and Joyce and in this case more particularly Borges and Flann O'Brien. It is the perfect book for those who love experiment, playfulness and cerebral humour. It is probably the best introduction to a marvellous (in all senses) writer.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Surreal and clever
A wonderfully clever and original book. The story of 'If on A Winter's Night...' is about the Reader, who is addressed throughout in the second person, a book lover who finds... Read more
Published 3 months ago by BookWorm

5.0 out of 5 stars Calvino at his wicked best
As with Invisible Cities Calvino keeps you spinning with multiple layers of reality designed to make you feel ill at ease. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. J. Dix

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste a week reading this book...
...unless you enjoy reading emotionless books. The structure is very clever, and there are very true musings upon reading itself, but it's more like a postmodernist exercise in... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Nat

3.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly insubstantial..
There is no doubt that 'If on a Winter's Night...' is very clever and may even be superbly crafted but, in the final analysis, it feels like nothing more than a brilliantly... Read more
Published 7 months ago by bressons_puddle

5.0 out of 5 stars A book to make you feel good about reading
This was certainly a very refreshing book to read. It starts with a reader buying a new book and settling down to read it. Read more
Published 9 months ago by starski

5.0 out of 5 stars If you love reading, read this!
I found this book a long time ago in the library at my Sixth form college, and was attracted by the title. After reading the first page, I could not put it down. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Sakerfalcon

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterclass of Storytelling
Many reviewers have praised the book for its cleverness but I'd just like to draw attention to the fact that every one of the vignettes (found within the main story) is a gem in... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Jason King

1.0 out of 5 stars Five stars? Hello? Are you MAD?
What on earth are all these reviewers who've given this book five stars DOING with their lives?! Do they really believe this stream of self-absorbed intellectual showboating is... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Book Keeper

5.0 out of 5 stars the pleasure of reading
I've never read a book like this one... A story about books, authors, readers and about the pleasure of reading. Read more
Published on 27 Jul 2007 by Belmiro Vilela

4.0 out of 5 stars Strange but beautifuly strange
WOW what a strange book!
I mean, have you ever thought about how huge your reading passion is? To be honest I didn't. Read more
Published on 21 April 2007 by Milan R.

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