Sick of Calvino's Bullsh*t...but Ludmilla's cool.

Some people think of Calvino's manipulative style with discomfort, or awe, but it makes me personally feel a little annoyed. It's as if he's trying to distract the reader from the story by giving him or her the Reader as a character through which to live vicariously. To be honest, it feels a little like a cop-out. On page 137, Calvino introduces another distraction--Ludmilla, the Other Reader. He goes on for a page about the assumed existence of the Third Person, the Other Reader who must exist in order for the novel to exist. He goes on to presume all this stuff about the Other Reader who is the reader, and therefore creates Ludmilla from the character and the female reader. As annoying as his earlier shenanigans with the male Reader are, this play with Ludmilla is actually kind of interesting because it shows Calvino isn't just this chauvinistic loser who assumes the Reader is male. He mentions the Other Reader before she is introduced as Ludmilla, but this is the part where he addresses the reader as female. He goes on to address to the reader, posing questions and fleshing out Ludmilla as he answers them for the reader. He then comes back to the original Reader and reassures him that he hasn't forgotten about him. Then, he has the male Reader become jealous of Irnerio's familiarity with Ludmilla, and the reader sees both sides, both the jealousy and the indignation at it. But then he has them make love, which is just weird, like the reader is making love with his or herself. Then Calvino pulls the reader back into the safety of the story and the search for the novel, but the reader is left a little weirded out, and a little annoyed.