Calvino

I like the idea of this novel, that the book leads you on how to read it. I've never read a book like that before, most just tell their story and let the chips fall as they may. In this case it was kind of interesting, the way the novel pushed thoughts into your mind. It made it much easier to get absorbed into the novel.

Normally I find I enjoy books better when they don't try to lead you places you wouldn’t normally go. Reading should be natural, not forced. 

I guess the idea for this novel was cool and I kind of liked it this one time, I don’t think I’d read a book like this again. 

Persisting Racism

“You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ~Octavia Butler
Even though this quote doesn’t exactly pertain to the blog I am writing, I liked it and I think it pertains to the essays we are writing for our final papers. Writing takes practice; even Octavia Butler has to edit her work. First drafts are always shit.

Even if the whole quote doesn’t pertain to the blog, persistence does. In Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred, racism persists throughout history. Butler says, “The future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done.” In Kindred Dana is a “slave” to the company she writes for and when she travels back in time, she is a slave to Rufus. Race defines who Dana is. Even though her education and intellect alter her experiences she can’t “rub off” (127) her skin tone.

In my sociology class, we have been learning about institutionalized racism. Even though the civil rights act in 1964 banned explicit forms of racism like segregation, racism is still engrained in the practices of American society. Much like Dana suffered as a slave to her job, while Kevin enjoyed job freedom and job security- situations like this exist in real life. The unemployment rate for African Americans is 16%, 4% higher than that of whites. In New Orleans, there is a 50% chance that African American men will spend part of their lifetimes in prison, whereas white men in New Orleans have less than a 10% chance of ever going to prison. Schools in mostly black neighborhoods are often worse than schools in mostly white neighborhoods, and adoption rates for black babies are half that of those for white babies. Why do these forms of institutionalized racism persist in American society almost 50 years after the Civil Rights Act was enacted? Is it like Butler said “the future of humanity will be like the past”? Or will this form of persistence eventually fade?

It's like we're back in 1st grade..

While discussing the ways in which to read this book in class, I became incresingly annoyed that this was a discussion we even needed to have. When I read a book, whether for class or for entertainment, I don't want the book telling me how to read it; I want to read the way I want to read.

I do agree with some of the class, however, that each book needs to be read differently in order to understand the concepts it is trying to get across. But in reading books that are very different from each other, I still find myself following my own personal reading style. It makes me so mad that Italo Calvino is trying to disrupt his readers reading habits with this unlinear and confusing book. It is like Calvino is doing this just to mess with our minds.

In Chapter 5, Ludmilla says something that I find interesting: "The novel I would most like to read at this moment should have as its driving force only the desire to narrate, to pile stories upon stories, without trying to impose a philosophy of life on you," (92). I believe that a books main purpose is to tell the reader a story, so, when reading, I do not want to have to figure out so philosophical point that the author is trying to make. I do not want to be left to put pieces of a book together to make it seem more logical- this is the authors job! Calvino is essentially trying to teach us how to read.. just like when we were in 1st grade.

Hate to love it, Love to hate it.

I find it very frustrating that I still can't tell whether or not I liked On a Winter's Night a Traveler. I know for a fact that I began to like quite a few of the stories, but before allowing myself to get too caught up in them, I prepared myself for the abrupt ending and anticipated disappointment of never finding out what happens.
I really want to be able to say I enjoyed the book, but to be honest, it pissed me off so much that I'm not sure I can get over my annoyance. I will grant Calvino the praise that the idea and structure of the book it down right brilliant - so brilliant, I hated it. I have never read a novel quite like this one, and its sure safe to say I wasn't fully prepared for this one.
I began writing this blog with honestly no direction, but a goal. I wanted to find out why I find myself disliking the book so much. It was a good book - it was very well written, easy to read, featured great characters and interesting stories. Then why do I find myself so ticked off with it? I've come to realize its because this novel didn't allow me to fall into the trap of manipulation. It literally prevented all chances of forgetting that it was a novel or getting caught up in the story. It was a novel that kept reminding me it was a novel.
On a Winter's Night a Traveler has come to show me that the power of literature is one thing that can honestly overcome human rationality and reason. This book was basically a tease since I never fully got what I wanted, aside from the realization that books have the ability to completely take over my brain.

Really?...Really?

Okay, so it’s time to be honest. When we first started reading “If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler,” I absolutely hated it. There was just something about the text that didn’t allow me to get involved. And when I’m not involved in a text….well….i usually stop reading it. But not this time. And I’m glad that I didn’t.

See, 260 pages after getting frustrated with the book, I had an epiphany and realize why I could not stand the book at first. Up until this novel, every book that I have read has had its substance at face value – i.e. I knew what I was reading – the plot, the characters, the setting, everything. And Calvino totally threw me a curveball with this text – and the discomfort made me automatically thrown up a guard a say “Ugh. I hate this book.”

As Pr. Schwartz said in reply to my whining – “Well, maybe the book hates you back.” But no. Because now I have an inkling of the book’s point. Calvino doesn’t care about plot summary or linear timelines or anything that makes up a traditional book. He is giving almost a social commentary on the way that people expect to read a book. He is informing me and the thousands out there like me that reading isn’t so cookie-cutter; every book doesn’t have to follow the cycle of rising action, climax, falling action, and all the other “literary terms” in between.

So I applaud you, Calvino. But it was like pulling teeth the entire time.

Sweet Dreams

Appropriately titled because of the fact that it is 2:15 in the morning; I couldn't figure out what EXACTLY I wanted to say for the blog and then I remembered the mini-conversation about dreams. When we were actively searching for symbols and metaphors during class, Morgan pointed out dreams and though I have to admit I was shocked that she actually found one that made sense to me (lol) it was a REALLY good one. It pertained not only to the book, but to the class as well. Dreams lie to you constantly, and they are blatant lies at that. Sometimes you have a dream about your best friend, and even though the person in your dream looks NOTHING like your best friend, you KNOW that's who it is supposed to be. I feel like that's what we have been doing. Even though the book says one thing we know it's another, but we don't let it bother us... usually. Now that we are further along in the class and more comfortable, we have that tendency to "go with the flow" and let the story be told to us. I actually really like that even though we're not getting so worked up over the stories like we were, we are still cautious and still question what we don't know.

A Reader's Manipulation

Upon beginning a novel, you relax and project yourself into events that exist within the text. As Calvino states, “once you’re absorbed in reading there will be no budging you.” You choose to begin the novel, but as the first sentence glides beneath your eyes, you give up your ability to make decisions because the new world you enter is not your own. The text is the driving force, compelling you to “follow events of pages and pages with passive resignation.” Yet, while you have no control over the passing events, you still “find yourself involved, despite yourself.” This is the manipulative world of the story, which is the basic plot to Calvino’s novel.
Calvino structures If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler in a way that demonstrates your lake of control. By beginning a new story every other chapter, Calvino erases the traditional method of storytelling, in which an ending resolves the main idea of the narrative. The absence of an ending evokes frustration, as it goes against your expectations. You feel the need to enter the novel to find a resolution, but you are bound to the text and unable to influence its structure. So you carry your frustration with you, which influences your understanding of the text. So, to represent you, the reader, Calvino inserts a protagonist called “Reader.” Throughout the novel, this character searches for the endings of the books he begins but is consistently disappointed. Your annoyance is reflected in him, as you both yearn to find some meaning to the plots of the many novels. Yet, neither of you are ever satisfied with an ending.
However, by the novel’s end, you realize that the plot was never the point of the story, and that you and “Reader” are chasing a main idea that never existed. Instead of a moral or lesson, the main idea of the novel is to demonstrate how a text manipulates the reader. Because the text is unchangeable, you are forced surrender your control on events, just as “Reader,” regardless of the frustration involved.

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.

Coming Full Circle

I feel that If on Winter's Night a Traveler has been talked about enough in class. Miss Janelle even told us that she would usually never spend 4 days on a single text.  But the ideas that transcend the book are worth debating even still. I have never seen Jeremy so up in arms about an issue until I saw the furry in his eyes during last class.  Miss Janelle tells us there is only one way to read a text, and he throws a shit storm almost as if the Patriots got their asses kicked by the Saints the night before (ouch).  The idea that he had to read the text exactly how everyone else who had ever read it was ridiculous to him. It was almost as if that statement alone sucked out every inch of freedom this man had.  So why does it take a question of freedom to infuriate someone so much?  Calvino's novel takes away our freedom from the get go. He is telling us how to read our novel. Back the FUCK up Italo. I'm going to read how ever the hell I want. Then I'm going to finish this novel... right after you tell me I'm about to. How free are we really when we read these texts?  We're instructed to and then we do it. Then we participate in the discussion that we don't have a choice whether or not to listen to.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, however, I mean we pay to get schooled here. I know I like the class, and I have liked all the books. But I'm scared every time someone tries to rape my free will away from me. Please don't do that, I like making my own decisions. 

I seem to be living in a world of confusion these days.

Out of all the books we had to read in this class, I must say If On A Winter's Night A Traveler confused me the most. Although I give Calvino credit for his unique and experimental style, it simply does not work for me. I don't think I've ever been so confused in my life. Calvino's use of two different stories causes a sense of two realities. Throughout the book, I found myself getting lost between the two. I couldn't figure out which was the novel, which was outside information, or if there were two stories in one book. However, I do think this style of writing is perfect for this course. It challenges us to actually pay attention to what we're reading. Miss one detail and you are sure to be lost.By Calvino using these two different story lines, it is up to the reader to distinguish the truth from the lies. It is in this sense that I feel this novel emphasizes the idea that we have been discussing all semester: it doesn't really matter what's true and what's false. The point of the story is not based on reality vs. fiction, but on the subject matter and issues that are addressed.

Even though I did not like this book at all, and felt completely lost while reading it, I can't deny the fact that it serves a purpose in this class. Despite the confusing circumstances surrounding the plot, we shouldn't allow ourselves to focus on finding the truth. Sometimes not knowing is the best part.

If on a Winter's Night, a Castle

The end of If on a Winter's Night, a Traveler reminded me of The Man in the High Castle because the Reader realized that he was a fictional character in a book, just like Juliana Frink did.

The books share other similarities as well. They both have a fictional book (or 10) within them and a fictional author that helps to reveal that the novels are aware that they are novels and the characters become aware that they are fictional characters.

We discussed in class how Abensen's manner and speech reveals that he knows more about the multiple realities inside--and outside--Dick's novel than he is letting on. In If on a Winter's Night, a Traveler the role of Sillas Flannery is more obvious. He writes plans for the story of Reader and Other Reader in his journal and the Reader eventually, well, reads them.

The biggest difference here is that Juliana moves away from her fictional world while the Reader accepts his fate a character in a story and picks and ending for himself by marrying Ludmilla.

This begs the question of weither the Reader could have chosen any other fate than death or marriage. Juliana finished the fictional work within her novel (The Grasshopper Lies Heavy) and met Abensen, the things she set out to do, the things that could have kept her "trapped" in the (more?) fictional world. The Reader, by the end of the text, has not finished any of the ten novels he has started meaning he is still trapped within the confines of the novel, searching and reading.

Frustration

My title is "Frustration" because that is what I felt while reading this book. At first when Calvino was telling me what to do, I was annoyed because he sounded so sure of himself, but he wasn't really right all the time. What a tool.

But then I started to realize that there were two "yous," and that "you" wasn't really me. So then that was okay. But then whenever "you" started a story, it ended just when the action picked up! I was just as frustrated as "you" was in the story (though I'm not sure if I would have gone through as much trouble to find the continuation).

As the numbered and storied chapters went on, I started noticing that the real story was in the the numbered chapters. I think it just takes a while of reading before you can figure out what the "real" story is. And at least this one ended. I think.

I really wish this class was called "the art of manipulation," as was desired. This book would be PERFECT for any class with manipulation in the title, because I definitely felt manipulated for the entire thing. It's not until the last few pages that everything finally comes together, and even then, it doesn't totally make sense. Or I just didn't totally get it. Either way, I'm starting to think that maybe Calvino wrote this the same way we wrote our crazy little story.

who wants candy?

All of us enrolled in this class know that I have the attention span of a small animal, possibly a gnat. However, I am going to use this to my advantage and blog about the very beginning of the novel.

When I began reading this novel, I thought whoa, this guy is good. How could someone publishing a book in 1979 possibly know that I have to pee? It was then that I realized that I was going to be manipulated. I wanted to point out that not only we are manipulated into the novel because of the infamous "you" and you, but because of the way the author speaks to us. The first thing he does is make us comfortable, check up on ya...then BAM! You are married to some chick. He does this by attempting to find one thing to relate us to the novel...maybe its yoga, a room next door with a tv on, or the need to pee. He is the creepy man in the white van that says he has candy. It is because of Calvino's candy that we, the readers, allow ourselves to become the "you" presented in the novel. The art of manipulation can be achieved by the comfort presented to the audience.

If on a when a someone would do what?

You are about to begin reading Andrew Kozaites’s new blog. Relax. Concentrate. Maybe pick one of your favorite songs on Itunes. May I suggest Chopin? It’s good reading music.

Sit comfortably in your chair. Or lie on your bed if you have a lap top. Before you begin reading, get the everydays out of the way. Check your email. Fool around on Facebook for a few minutes. Catch up on the local news and sports.

Finally you settle on the Truth Lies and Literature homepage. You look to see who’s posted before this writer. You glance over their blogs, but really you came here to read this one.

The blog begins somewhere in a library computer lab. A young student is reading up on their literature class’s blog page. They search frantically for the post entitled “If on a when a someone would do what?” but come up with nothing. The reader knows it’s there. They saw it just last night when they glanced at the page. Perhaps it’s the computer.

Now where could this blog possibly be going? Does it have any real substance, purpose or meaning? Or is it that Andrew Kozaites is too lazy and opted to imitate Italo Calvino?

The reader goes to the next computer. Signs in. Goes to the Truth Lies and Literature page and finds the “If on a when a someone would do what?” post. They begin to read, but are soon distracted by the person sitting next to them.

I am using “Them” as a means of overcoming the ambiguity of the sexes, as well as the multiple readers that I am sure “you” all are.

They fall in love and get married. They are in bed and the reader still has the laptop with themselves. The one asks whether or not the reader is tired of reading this blog yet.

And you reply “Just a moment I’ve almost finished reading Andrew Kozaites’s new blog ‘If on a when a someone would do what?”

"you" are who you are

Another confusing book that we as the readers get drawn into. Up until the last page we are connected to the character in the novel. Just like Aura we are helping the story build and as the reader we make the characters. By becoming one of the characters to keep the novel and story going the reader must keep reading. By going with the flow you as the reader are kind of giving up. The author had a plan and you are leading right into it. The reader at some point needs to back off and put the book down to "save themself" from the book. By doing this the reader is no longer the character.
Also in Phillip K. Dick's novel Man in the High Castle the characters knew they were part of a story and not really a person in the world. When we take ourselves out of the novel the characters have to pick and decide what to do next. The last page of If on a Winter's Night a Traveller the character is stating he is almost finished with the book. At that moment we as the reader are too. We must take ourselves away from being involved with the charcter or we will be stuck inside the novel.
The ending is him going to marry Ledmilla but we don't marry her. The other ending would be him dying but we don't die just because we stop reading. This is when we are taken out of the novel. Our lives aren't changing like the character in the novel. We are finally back to being one and him another.

Calvino, what did you just put me through??

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.

Let's talk about sex

We're all adults here, so let's not get coy. Sex is a HUGE part of If on a winter's night a traveler. The way that sex is portrayed in the novel might be a writing device, or might reflect the author's views on sex.

Throughout the novel sex is used, literally. The characters don't have sex, they are controlled by it or through it. Sex, then, becomes not the act of sexual intercourse but an act of domination which places a character completely under the thrall of another character. And most often the controlling character is the woman.


Calvino makes his female characters manipulative and conniving sphinxes who seek to control their destinies through the domination of a man.

Sex itself is used often in the "novel" chapters as a shock device. Within the story chapters there is no "normal" sex, no middle-of-the-road missionary, lights off, eyes closed style. There is a threesome, adultery, and manipulative exhibitionism. This gives us the sense of unreality that is prevalent in most of the story chapters. This unreality is a way to let us know that we are not within the reality of the "you."

In the plot chapters the sex is at first normalish, and then becomes and expression of rebellion. When you has sex with Ludmilla it is normal. When you has sex with Lotaria/secret-agent-chick it is an act of rebellion, it is a way for you to come into control of his life and is thus also a reflection of the domination sex in the other chapters.
The difference is that in the plot chapters it is you, who is male, that manipulates the sex for his own benefit. So he more aptly reflects the female characters in the novels that he reads. Randomly.

This portrayal of sex might also reflect Calvino's views on sex or his relationship with sex. But that gets into a) creepy and b) irrelevant territory. Instead let's focus on sex as a literary device. (Please god)

Sex plays a huge role in the story as a symbol of domination and manipulation. Yet we didn't even touch on it in class. Which makes me think "puritan morals" in really big hot pink bold letters.

Which amuses me.

Reading Is What's Important

I do not like this book at all. I found myself forcing my mind to concentrate on the lines on the page. Due to my attitude towards the book, I decided to look up information on Italo Calvino so that maybe I would understand his style of writing. I came upon biographical information that basically told me what I figured out from reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveler: Calvino is an experimental writer with a big imagination. Someone known for experimenting with his writing is expected to catch the reader by surprise; and Calvino certainly did that with me. Not only does he create two different "realities," but he also overlaps events/characters/ideas/facts within the realities/worlds (which confuses the reader even more). And as that wasn't enough, things that happen within the book itself happens to the reader (like never finishing a story). Because I didn't like this book I feel like I'm not a fit analyzer. But, I think that what Calvino wanted us to do with the book is experiment with reading. With the way he introduces the story already shows the reader that this book will require different reading skills from what we are used to (i.e. having a clear plot, having clear characters, having motives/goals, having a climax, etc.). And if that was Calvino's goal then I applaud him. It takes a brave person to take a risk and introduce the public to a totally different form of story-telling and expecting them to have an open-mind and be vulnerable to foreign things.

To read, or not to read? That is the question.

Where do I even begin? Well, I guess the beginning would be a good place to start. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino is unlike any other novel I have ever read in my entire life and I think that is why I like it so much.

So, while we're starting at the beginning of my thoughts about this novel, we might as well start at the beginning of the novel itself. In the first chapter, Calvino is giving the reader instructions on how to read this novel. He says, “Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; The TV is always on in the next room” (Calvino 3). I feel as though Calvino is giving the illusion that there is a way to read this novel. To somehow surpass the confusion and fog that he creates for the reader, when in reality there is not. In order to read this novel, one must suspend rational thought. They must let go of their past impressions or beliefs of what a novel should be or is supposed to be because that is not what this novel is. Calvino goes on to say on the first page of this novel, “Of course, the ideal position for reading is something you can never find” (3). Just as there is no position that one can find to read this novel, there is no particular strategy that one can prepare to take on what is to come on the following pages.

Calvino writes, “…[H]e is known as an author who changes greatly from one book to the next. And in these very changes you recognize him as himself” (9). In a way, I think that is why Calvino does not give a perfect map on which a reader can follow in order to make it further into the “story.” He is not only defining himself as an author, but he is also challenging the reader to look at his writing from a different light. He wants to make the reader not only look at his writing differently, but also look at reality differently. We are so trained to think a certain way and act a certain way that we sometimes forget to question why we are doing those things in the first place. That is what this novel is doing for us; it is forcing us to question our believed reality. For example, Calvino goes so far as to pose the question of why we read in the first place. He does this through the character of Irnerio when he says, “Me? I don’t read books!...It’s not easy: they teach us to read as children, and for the rest of our lives we remain the slaves of all the written stuff they fling in front of us” (49). Just as it is impossible for the reader to change the writing in Calvino’s novel, it is also impossible for us not to read it. In essence, we are all playing a role in this manipulation, whether we want to or not, and must understand that, but not fight it because in the end, I believe the reader gains insight into the art of story telling and rhetoric that they may never have understood otherwise.

Calvino, the trickster

"You're the sort of person who no longer expects anything of anything...from people, from journeys...You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst. This is the conclusion you have reached in your personal life...general matters, even international matters" (Calvino 4). This statement is the first illustration of the manipulation done by the author. How can a person, or the author in this case, tell you how to feel and what to conclude about the personal matters of your life? Does it not feel like the author is invading the personal privacy of your mind? Isn't the purpose of reading a book is to have your own imagination or interpretation of what your are reading? This manipulation that Calvino does throughout the book is what I dislike the most.

I was already told in class since Aura that this sort of manipulation will get worse by the time we get to If on a winter's night a traveler. I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know that it was going to be this bad to the point where it felt like I was being brainwashed to the point where I could not feel or think for myself about the book. What's even more annoying is that at some parts of the book Calvino interrupts my train of thought about the literature and slaps on a piece of "what you are suppose to feel now" section in the text, "You have not read about thirty pages and you're becoming caught up in the story...You are the sort of reader who is sensitive...just when you were beginning to grow truly interested...the author feels [to] call upon you to display one of those virtuoso tricks" (Calvino 25). Calvino just jumps in and tells you how many pages you have read and what sort of reader you are and exactly what you are feeling but he tells you what he is doing that is bothersome to me, as a reader. It is true that I do grow interested at the peak of the story and Calvino just ruins it by puting in a manipulation piece or just starts a new story. Clavino states from the first story of the train, " They've killed Jan. Clear out...Go to track six. Opposite the freight station. You have three minutes...Move, or I'll have to arrest you...The express arrives at top speed. It slows down...[and]pulls out again." And that's where the story ends. How can Calvino just leave you hanging and knowing that because you are awaiting for the fall of the climax just ramble on about the physical book itself (page number, words, and signatures). "The mistake occurred as they were binding the volume...each signature is a large sheet on which sixteen pages are printed" (Calvino 25). This sort of jumping around from text, the author's point of view, to cutting the story short and starting a new story is all confusing and gives me a headache.

By the time I got to the second story I let the the author's manipulation take over and I decided to to go with the book's flow instead of fighting it. At least by following the flow of the novel, reading the book would not be such a hassle. In the second story Calvino stated, "Today I saw a hand thrust out of a window of the prison, toward the sea...the hand seemed white and slender to me, a hand not unlike my own...nothing expect[ed] in a convict" (Calvino, 55). If I am not able to flow with Calvino's stories with my sense of correlation or flow it's best for me to incorporate my senses with his flow in order to comprehend Calvino's literature.