LITERATURE: If on a winter’s night a traveler – Finale

This novel by Italo Calvino is easily placed among my favorite books, and I’d likely put it up there in the top ten maybe.

It is a writer’s book, a book for writers.  It is a book about readers and writers.  It is a book about writing and reading. I’d go so far as to say that this should be a college course in creative writing.  All the elements of the craft are here, both hidden within Calvino’s words and exemplified by them.  I went into the shop this morning with only four pages left to read.  I’d read a few lines, a paragraph, then put the book down.  Picking it up, I might reread what I’d just read and go a little further. My motives were obvious: I did not want the book to end.

There is skill here in the established novel form, and there is even more skill in turning it upside down and inside out.  I don’t believe that it was only because of my personal interest in hypertext that I found so much from Calvino touching well into that form too.  Maybe I didn’t quite learn very much new in writing–except for Calvino’s inimitable style and concept, but everything I’ve learned up until I’ve read this book was indeed confirmed and enhanced by Calvino’s presentation of story.  And of course, stories within story. 

I will add more of Calvino’s works to my "To Buy" list, but I wonder if any of his other pieces can possibly measure up to much less overshine If on a winter’s night a traveler.