LITERATURE: If on a winter’s night… – Layers

I’d noticed this before but there’s an instance here that illustrates how Calvino touches on so many areas within one fell swoop of his pen:

Every moment you discover there is a new character, you don’t know how many people there are in this immense kitchen of ours, it’s no use counting, there were always many of us, at Kudgiwa, always coming and going: the sum never works out properly because different names can belong to the same character, indicated according to the circumstances by baptismal name, nickname, surname or patronymic, and even by appellations such as "Jan’s widow," or "the apprentice from the corn shop."  But what counts are the physical details that the novel underlines–Bronko’s gnawed nails, the down on Brigd’s cheeks–and also the gestures, the utensils that this person or that is handling–the meat pounder, the colander for the cress, the butter curler–so that each character already receives a first definition through this action or attribute; but then we wish to learn even more, as if the butter curler already determined the character and the fate of the person who is presented in the first chapter handling a butter curler, and as if you, Reader, were already prepared, each time that character is introduced again in the course of the novel, to cry, "Ah, that’s the butter curler one!" thus obligating the author to attribute to him acts and events in keeping with that initial butter curler. (p. 35)

Wow.  This is just the cat’s meow.  In this one paragraph we have so much to learn.

"Every moment you discover there is a new character,": This tells me that until you read further, you will not know, though you are sitting in the middle of this story, who else is in the room until the author writes it in.  A fascinating concept; simple, but true.

Calvino then goes on: "the sum never works out properly because different names can belong to the same character…"  Shades of Dostoevsky and every other annoying Russian writers who loves to confuse!  Is Calvino pointing out a writing ploy?

"But what counts are the physical details that the novel underlines–(…)and also the gestures, the utensils…"  I believe Calvino is doing several things here.  He is focusing the reader on this portion of the story, perhaps hinting that he go back and look for a ‘butter-curler’ or some such thing that shall prove to be important to the story.  He is also telling us that this is what he is doing; and in doing so, is bringing the author into the storyworld where he and you are the reality figures living in the same space as these fictional characters of the novel. 

And third, he’s giving us a nice lesson in how to write: "Ah, that’s the butter-curler one!" thus obligating the author to attribute to him acts and events in keeping with that initial butter-curler.

Good God,how did the man think of all this?