Calvino's If On a Winter's Night was an awkward and uncomfortable read for me. However, in no way am I criticizing Calvino's writing style. In fact, I dig the idea, not necessarily the experience, like liking the idea of staying home sick from school but not actually being sick. Calvino created several realities and worlds, as opposed to a single reality with a set plotline, a constant group of characters and a resolution to a problem. Calvino's creation was not an escape from our reality, but escapes from the reality he presents to us in his text.
The numbered chapters were difficult to read for me, as I don't usually read books written in second person. The feeling of being told what I am doing and not feeling I have control as a character is weird. The numbered chapters felt like I was reading on auto-pilot. I wasn't someone else experiencing these things; I was still me not experiencing going to the bookstore and picking up Calvino's newest novel, but it was still me at the same time. It was a truly interesting paradox but a rather weird experience. Also, the text took me on a quest that I could find no true solution to. I could not meet the objective placed before me; the book kept telling me that I couldn't find the rest of If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. The titled chapters were no better. I couldn't escape into a consistent reality like books I usually read. I was constantly thrown into something new. Eight stories were created, but not elaborated upon. All I could find was a sample of each. It was a tease.
Now, with my opinion aside, I'm fascinated by the artful technique through which Calvino developed his story. He created like eight different realities told by different authors with different styles, along with the reality which he forces the reader to experience through second person narrative. That's an incredible feat. It feels like Calvino created a novel not for the reader's enjoyment, but rather a test to the reader's capability as a reader. Calvino writes, "The world is so complicated, tangled, and overloaded, that to see into it with any clarity, you must prune and prune" (Calvino 244). This greatly parallels to us as readers, as we make clarity and sense out of the discombobulated mess Calvino presents to us. Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller could be the most annoying text I've read in this course and the most ingenious text I've read.
I enjoyed your post, especially the duality of the feelings left with after completion. It's kind of like eating an exotic food, it may be sweet but with a bitter after taste. I also liked how you said Calvino didn't write it for the reader but as a test for the reader. I almost felt as though he wrote it just to screw with the reader for his own enjoyment.
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