BONUS: A Reflection on Calvino's "If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler"

You thought it was over?

“Something must always remain that eludes us…. For power to have an object on which to be exercised, a space in which to stretch out its arms… As long as I know there exists in the world someone who does tricks only for the love of the trick, as long as I know there is a woman who loves reading for reading’s sake, I can convince myself the world continues…”

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog. I hope you are enjoying your final week of classes. Today I will be reflecting on Calvino’s “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler", so let us dive right in.

You might be asking yourself, wasn’t Calvino a few weeks back? Why is he putting this blog out now? Put simply, the premise of the novel was so intriguing I wanted to read it, and seeing as I finished it before the conclusion of the term I decided I would also put out a blog post for the book. So here we are. For logistic reasons, I want to make it very clear to the teaching team I contracted for “Hour of the Star” and did the respective work for that. With that out of the way, we may continue with the reflection.

I can confidently say “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler" is one hundred percent worth the read. It has high levels of whimsy and fantastical elements without being a fantasy novel itself. Though long, I truly felt engaged throughout and wanted to get to the end desperately. The book’s “core” components being in the second person was such a fascinating structural element and heightened the reading experience beyond what I expected. I find the premise of the novel, a Reader attempting to finish one unending book after another, quite ingenious. Yet, is that all this novel is about?

The plot of “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler" starts to be a little hard to follow by the end of the book. Of course, I was still engrossed in it regardless, but it would be difficult for me to relay exactly what the end of the novel was about. That being said, I do find thrusting the main character from a rather simple narrative to being tied up in a government conspiracy regarding censorship and trickery is excellent.

“If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler" has been one of my favourites of the term, which is a little comical seeing as I was not required to read it. Either way, I can imagine returning to this book and recommending it to some of my friends. If you reached the end of the blog post, my question for you this week is what “unfinished story” was your favourite from the book? In the meantime, let me know your thoughts in the comments. Bye for now.

B.B.