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A review by rtcrook
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
3.0
3.5 stars - very conflicted about how to rate this.
I loved the experimentation in structure and how it all tied into the act of reading itself. There are some truly insightful reflections in here and this book will stick with me for a while.
I hated the cognitive load of actually reading it. I like difficult books, but the slog of reading it combined with things like all the women being props to advance the point or story, or the strange uses of different cultures without feeling like the author had a grasp on them, just really put me off. It was written in the 70s so I by no means had high expectations for either of those points, but combined with always feeling tired of reading it, I just found myself going UGH. The book was universal in many of its insights, but very dated in the way it explored some of those said insights.
I think this might have benefited from a closer, slower reading to prevent the frustration from piling up and to catch more of the nuance.
Very glad I read it, will likely never ever re-read it.
I loved the experimentation in structure and how it all tied into the act of reading itself. There are some truly insightful reflections in here and this book will stick with me for a while.
I hated the cognitive load of actually reading it. I like difficult books, but the slog of reading it combined with things like all the women being props to advance the point or story, or the strange uses of different cultures without feeling like the author had a grasp on them, just really put me off. It was written in the 70s so I by no means had high expectations for either of those points, but combined with always feeling tired of reading it, I just found myself going UGH. The book was universal in many of its insights, but very dated in the way it explored some of those said insights.
I think this might have benefited from a closer, slower reading to prevent the frustration from piling up and to catch more of the nuance.
Very glad I read it, will likely never ever re-read it.