If on a winter's night a traveler

Last updated
If on a winter's night a traveler
IfOnAWintersNight.jpg
First edition (publ. Einaudi, Turin)
Author Italo Calvino
Original titleSe una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore
Translator William Weaver
Cover artist Dominique Appia [1]
Country Italy
Language Italian
Genre Postmodernist novel
Publisher Einaudi
Publication date
1979
Published in English
1981
ISBN 9788806491307
OCLC 777233785
853.914
LC Class PQ4809.A45 S3713
Preceded by Invisible Cities  
Followed by Mr. Palomar  

If on a winter's night a traveler (Italian : Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore) is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler. Each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section of each chapter is in second person, and describes the process the reader goes through to attempt to read the next chapter of the book they are reading. The second half is the first part of a new book that the reader ("you") finds. The second half is always about something different from the previous ones. The book was published in an English translation by William Weaver in 1981.

Contents

Structure

The book begins with a chapter on the art and nature of reading, and is subsequently divided into twenty-two passages. The odd-numbered passages and the final passage are narrated in the second person. That is, they concern events purportedly happening to the novel's reader. (Some contain further discussions about whether the person narrated as "you" is the same as the "you" who is actually reading.) These chapters concern the reader's adventures in reading Italo Calvino's novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Eventually the reader meets a woman named Ludmilla, who is also addressed in her own chapter, separately, and also in the second person.

Alternating between second-person narrative chapters of this story are the remaining (even) passages, each of which is a first chapter in ten different novels, of widely varying style, genre, and subject-matter. All are broken off, for various reasons explained in the interspersed passages, most of them at some moment of plot climax.

The second-person narrative passages develop into a fairly cohesive novel that puts its two protagonists on the track of an international book-fraud conspiracy, a mischievous translator, a reclusive novelist, a collapsing publishing house, and several repressive governments.

The chapters, which are the first chapters of different books, all push the narrative chapters along. Themes which are introduced in each of the first chapters will then exist in succeeding narrative chapters. For example, after reading the first chapter of a detective novel, the narrative story takes on a few common detective-style themes. There are also phrases and descriptions that are similar between the narrative and the new stories.

When the titles of the fragmentary fictions are read in order—as they are by a character near the end of the narrative—they form a sentence: "If on a winter's night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave— What story down there awaits its end?—he asks, anxious to hear the story." [2]

The theme of a writer's objectivity appears also in Calvino's novel Mr. Palomar , which explores if absolute objectivity is possible, or even agreeable. Other themes include the subjectivity of meaning, the relationship between fiction and life, what makes an ideal reader and author, and authorial originality.

Cimmeria

Cimmeria is a fictional country in the novel. The country is described as having existed as an independent state between World War I and World War II. The capital is Örkko, and its principal resources are peat and by-products, bituminous compounds. Cimmeria seems to have been located somewhere on the Gulf of Bothnia, a body of water between Sweden to the west and Finland to the east. The country has since been absorbed, and its people and language, of the 'Bothno-Ugaric' group, have both disappeared. As Calvino concludes the alleged, fictional encyclopedia entry concerning Cimmeria: "In successive territorial divisions between her powerful neighbors the young nation was soon erased from the map; the autochthonous population was dispersed; Cimmerian language and culture had no development". [3]

The pair of chapters following the two on Cimmeria and its literature are followed by one describing another fictional country called the Cimbrian People's Republic, which allegedly absorbed Cimmeria after World War II.

Characters

The main character in the first part of each chapter is you, the reader. The narrative starts out when you begin reading a book but then all of the pages are out of order. You then go to a bookstore to get a new copy of the book. When at the bookstore, you meet a girl, Ludmilla, who becomes an important character in the book. You think Ludmilla is beautiful, and you both share a love of books. Throughout the rest of the narrative, you and Ludmilla develop a relationship while on the quest for the rest of the book you had started reading. There are a number of minor characters that appear at various points in the story including Lotaria (Ludmilla's sister), Ermes Marana (a translation scammer), and Silas Flannery (an author).

Influences

In a 1985 interview with Gregory Lucente, Calvino stated If on a winter's night a traveler was "clearly" influenced by the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. [4] The book was also influenced by the author's membership in the literary group Oulipo. [5] The structure of the text is said to be an adaptation of the structural semiology of A.J. Greimas. [5]

In a letter written to critic Lucio Lombardo Radice dated November 13, 1979 (published in Italo Calvino: letters, 1941–1985), Calvino mentions Mikhail Bulgakov, Yasunari Kawabata, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Juan Rulfo, José María Arguedas, Jorge Luis Borges and G.K. Chesterton as having influenced, in various ways, the narrative style of the ten stories that comprise the book. [6]

Legacy and opinion

Dave Langford reviewed If on a winter's night a traveler for White Dwarf #45, and declared it "a splendidly batty book about books. [...] Offbeat and fun." [7]

The Telegraph included the novel in 69th place in a list of "100 novels everyone should read" in 2009, describing it as a "playful postmodernist puzzle". [8]

Author David Mitchell described himself as being "magnetised" by the book from its start when he read it as an undergraduate, but on rereading it, felt it had aged and that he did not find it "breathtakingly inventive" as he had the first time, yet does stress that "however breathtakingly inventive a book is, it is only breathtakingly inventive once" – with once being better than never. [9]

Novelist and lecturer Scarlett Thomas uses it to teach innovative contemporary fiction, as an example of different kinds of narrative techniques. [10]

Sting named his 2009 album If on a Winter's Night... after the book. [11]

English musician and composer Bill Ryder-Jones released the album If... on 14 November 2011. The album is a musical adaptation of the book and serves as an "imaginary film score". [12]

The 2021 video game If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers was named after the book.

A radio adaptation of the book starring Toby Jones, Indira Varma and Tim Crouch was recorded as part of BBC's 100 years of Radio Drama Celebrations and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 24 Sep 2023. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italo Calvino</span> Italian writer and journalist (1923–1985)

Italo Calvino was an Italian writer and journalist. His best-known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952–1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If on a winter's night a traveler (1979).

<i>The Castle of Crossed Destinies</i> 1973 novel by Italo Calvino

The Castle of Crossed Destinies is a 1973 novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino.

A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from that storyteller's own personal point of view, using first-person grammar such as "I", "me", "my", and "myself". It must be narrated by a first-person character, such as a protagonist, re-teller, witness, or peripheral character. Alternatively, in a visual storytelling medium, the first-person perspective is a graphical perspective rendered through a character's visual field, so the camera is "seeing" out of a character's eyes.

Cimmeria may refer to:

<i>Invisible Cities</i> 1972 novel by Italo Calvino

Invisible Cities is a novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. It was published in Italy in 1972 by Giulio Einaudi Editore.

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot: the series of events. Narration is a required element of all written stories, presenting the story in its entirety. However, narration is merely optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows, and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action.

<i>Hopscotch</i> (Cortázar novel) 1963 novel by Julio Cortázar

Hopscotch is a novel by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. Written in Paris, it was published in Spanish in 1963 and in English in 1966. For the first U.S. edition, translator Gregory Rabassa split the inaugural National Book Award in the translation category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Parks</span> British writer

Timothy Harold Parks is a British novelist, author of nonfiction, translator from Italian to English, and professor of literature.

<i>Mr. Palomar</i>

Mr. Palomar is a 1983 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. Its original Italian title is Palomar. In an interview with Gregory Lucente, Calvino stated that he began writing Mr. Palomar in 1975, making it a predecessor to earlier published works such as If on a winter's night a traveler. Mr. Palomar was published in an English translation by William Weaver in 1985.

<i>Gil Blas</i> Picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage

Gil Blas is a picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage published between 1715 and 1735. It was highly popular, and was translated several times into English, most notably as The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, by Tobias Smollett in 1748.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Experimental literature</span> Genre of literature

Experimental literature is a genre of literature that is generally "difficult to define with any sort of precision." It experiments with the conventions of literature, including boundaries of genres and styles; for example, it can be written in the form of prose narratives or poetry, but the text may be set on the page in differing configurations than that of normal prose paragraphs or in the classical stanza form of verse. It may also incorporate art or photography. Furthermore, while experimental literature was traditionally handwritten, the digital age has seen an exponential use of writing experimental works with word processors.

<i>The Baron in the Trees</i>

The Baron in the Trees is a 1957 novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. Described as a conte philosophique and a metaphor for independence, it tells the adventures of a boy who climbs up a tree to spend the rest of his life inhabiting an arboreal kingdom. Calvino published a new version of the novel in 1959.

<i>Marcovaldo</i>

Marcovaldo is a collection of 20 short stories written by Italo Calvino. It was initially published, in 1963, as Marcovaldo ovvero Le stagioni in città. The first stories were written in the early 1950s.

<i>The Thirteenth Tale</i> 2006 novel by Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale (2006) by Diane Setterfield is a gothic suspense novel, the author's first published book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Ryder-Jones</span> Musical artist

William Edward Ryder-Jones is an English singer-songwriter, musician, music producer and composer from West Kirby, Merseyside. He co-founded the band The Coral, together with James Skelly, Lee Southall, Paul Duffy, and Ian Skelly, playing as their lead guitarist from 1996 until 2008. He has since pursued a solo career, writing both his own albums and film scores, as well as producing records for other artists and appearing as a session musician.

d'Inverno is a surname and may be:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classic book</span> Exemplary or noteworthy book

A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Classics?" and "What Is a Classic?" have been essayed by authors from different genres and eras. The ability of a classic book to be reinterpreted, to seemingly be renewed in the interests of generations of readers succeeding its creation, is a theme that is seen in the writings of literary critics including Michael Dirda, Ezra Pound, and Sainte-Beuve. These books can be published as a collection or presented as a list, such as Harold Bloom's list of books that constitute the Western canon. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature from all traditions, such as the Chinese classics or the Indian Vedas.

<i>Six Walks in the Fictional Woods</i>

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods is a non-fiction book by Umberto Eco. Originally delivered at Harvard for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1992 and 1993, the six lectures were published in the fall of 1994.

Ludmila or Ludmilla is a female given name of Slavic origin. It consists of two elements: lud ("people") and mila. Because the initial L is mostly soft (palatalized), it is sometimes also transcribed Lyudmila, Lyudmyla or Ljudmila, and is written as Ľudmila or Ľudmyla in Slovak.

References

  1. Grundtvig, Birgitte (July 5, 2017). Image, Eye and Art in Calvino. Routledge. ISBN   9781351563291 via Google Books.
  2. "If on a winter's night a traveler What's Up With the Title? | Shmoop". www.shmoop.com.
  3. If on a winter's night a traveler, pp. 43–44
  4. Lucente, Gregory. An Interview with Italo Calvino. Contemporary Literature. Vol. 26, No. 3, (Autumn 1985), p. 252.
  5. 1 2 Calvino, Italo. Comment j'ai écrit un de mes Livres, Bibliothèque oulipienne; cited in Paul Fournel's preface to the French translation of the book, Éditions du Seuil
  6. Italo Calvino: letters, 1941–1985; Princeton University Press, 2013, p. 501
  7. Langford, Dave (September 1983). "Critical Mass". White Dwarf . No. 45. Games Workshop. p. 12.
  8. "100 novels everyone should read". The Telegraph. 2009-01-16. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
  9. David Mitchell (2004-05-22). "David Mitchell rereads Italo Calvino". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
  10. "Interview with Scarlett Thomas". University of Kent. 2008-10-14. Archived from the original on 2011-02-05. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
  11. Andy Gill (2009-10-30). "Album: Sting, If on a Winter's Night... (Deutsche Grammophon)". The Independent. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
  12. Bill Ryder-Jones (2011-11-07). "Bill Ryder-Jones – If ... (exclusive album stream)". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-03-22.
  13. "Drama on 4" . Retrieved 2023-09-25.