A great and challenging piece of literature, ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler’ has the reader (you…or she…or I?) fall in love, take part in the people’s revolution, live in ancient Japan, and travel around the world saving novels from censors. This book is part social commentary, part literary critique, part action novel, and part drama. At the same time, it is wildly unique, intriguing, and enthralling.
Calvino jumps from second-person to first to third, omniscient and third, limited…and, as crazy and confusing as it sounds, not only does it work, but the reader (you? he? I?) is kept wanting to know more about every chapter, more about every conspiracy, and more about every author.
One of my favorite quotes from the novel:
The seventh reader interrupts you: “Do you believe that every story must have a beginning and an end? In ancient times a story could end only in two ways: having passed all the tests, the hero and the heroine married, or else they died. The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.”