Book Review: If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, by Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino is a spinner of stories like you wouldn't believe. Both a writer of literature and on literature, he has been credited as a folklorist for compiling a treasury of Italian fables, a fabulist for writing stories inventive stories that read more like art pieces, and a critic whose theories and perspectives on the humanities have been highly influential in his native Italy and beyond. He has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his literary style, and has tackled everything from Aesop-style fables to math and physics, to war stories, to dreams and unrealities and impossibilities in his writing. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler is considered by many to be his masterpiece, written in enough layers to make an onion jealous, yet maintaining a playful readability as long as the reader allows his or her logic to bend a little with the story.

The story follows You, the Reader, as you try to figure out the mystery of what happened to Italo Calvino's latest novel. As you were reading it quite comfortably at home, suddenly the story stopped, and the rest of the book was just the same first chapter over and over again. You take the book back to the store in disgust, only to find that you weren't reading Italo Calvino's new book at all -- there was a mix-up at the publishing house and his book was accidentally switched with that of a Polish author named Tazio Bazakbal. Thus begins a mystery hunt for the rest of the story, and along the way you enlist the help of a new character, The Other Reader, whose presence keeps you on your toes.

The dance of the story is dizzying at times, and there are several points in the book where you might need a little extra effort to trudge through, but the effort is undeniably worth it. If you are a reader that revels in a book with clever literary devices, twists and turns, and underlying beauty -- not to mention funny, quirky writing -- If On A Winter's Night A Traveler might become one of your favorites.

This is a book that bears a rereading, just to catch the intricacies of what Calvino is trying to do, which is to create a novel that carries a whiff of every possible novel. This book is also a call to the heart of every person who truly loves to read, because it asks the question: who are books written for? You will find yourself wondering exactly why it is that you like to read, and how you like to read. Do you like to get through a book quickly, or go slowly so as not to miss anything? Do you put yourself in the book? What expectations do you have of books before you read them? Calvino also gives a playful insight into the minds of writers in one part of the book by having them write for one specific reader, whose attention they are both coveting. It is interesting to read because, while it is highly exaggerated, it makes some sense -- all writers do write for someone, after all.

Final Score: A+