You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by tristansreadingmania
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
3.0
Ah, Metafiction, my dear friend. What a puzzlement you are. Indeed, what a veritable source of frustration you sometimes prove to be. Ever desperately struggling to find that delicate balance, to walk that oh so treacherous tightrope. After all, isn't it true that in your case, conceptual ingenuity is one thing, but simultaneously eliciting emotional investment from a reader is another?
Well, I hate to do this, I really do. Unfortunately, one of your practitioners, Italo Calvino, with his proclaimed masterpiece If on a Winter's Night a Traveller didn't quite manage to achieve the latter with this one, your humble reader. Let me explain.
This is a stupendous book. It truly is. Calvino represented your particular flavour well. You should be proud. The plot is intricately crafted, well-structured, daring. It has great prose, wonderful insights about the nature of reading, of writing, how both lifestyles intrude on life, shape it. All things any dedicated lover of literature should theoretically go for. Yes, in its time this novel was - I suppose - quite revolutionary and hip. It might still be, since it seems to steadfastly remain a favourite among the in-crowd.
Yet, why does it feel so cold, so distant, so - you're going to hate me for this - exceedingly artificial? Where is the vibrancy, the rawness? Where are the well-fleshed out characters one can invest in, the arcs? Why did visions of Calvino engaging in mental masturbation keep popping up in my mind while reading this? It's all just so dreadfully unengaging. Shouldn't this have been better served as a collection of short stories, with a metafictional framing device to connect them all?
Please don't think this slightly disappointed reader is lambasting the entire movement, I am not. I want to believe. I really, really do.
Well, I hate to do this, I really do. Unfortunately, one of your practitioners, Italo Calvino, with his proclaimed masterpiece If on a Winter's Night a Traveller didn't quite manage to achieve the latter with this one, your humble reader. Let me explain.
This is a stupendous book. It truly is. Calvino represented your particular flavour well. You should be proud. The plot is intricately crafted, well-structured, daring. It has great prose, wonderful insights about the nature of reading, of writing, how both lifestyles intrude on life, shape it. All things any dedicated lover of literature should theoretically go for. Yes, in its time this novel was - I suppose - quite revolutionary and hip. It might still be, since it seems to steadfastly remain a favourite among the in-crowd.
Yet, why does it feel so cold, so distant, so - you're going to hate me for this - exceedingly artificial? Where is the vibrancy, the rawness? Where are the well-fleshed out characters one can invest in, the arcs? Why did visions of Calvino engaging in mental masturbation keep popping up in my mind while reading this? It's all just so dreadfully unengaging. Shouldn't this have been better served as a collection of short stories, with a metafictional framing device to connect them all?
Please don't think this slightly disappointed reader is lambasting the entire movement, I am not. I want to believe. I really, really do.