Chain Reading

I've chosen not to give this book a rating because in creativeity, this book is excellent: in actual content, I find it poor.

Good points: It was written by an Italian, it had an intriquing style, it made me think, it was bound in beautiful navy cloth and the pages were thick and creamy. Bad points: It was just plain strange. And the further the thing progressed, the more unneeded sex was stuck in at random places.

The idea was very interesting. The novel is written directly to you, the reader. (You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought.) You are the main character in the novel. You start reading a novel, which is chapter two. Chapter three has you discovering that due to a printing error, the novel you started to read repeats the first chapter over and over again. You go to the bookshop and are given a properly printed book, but when you start reading it you realize that it is a completely different book. It's captivating, so you read it anyway (chapter four), but again, something is wrong and it stops after only one chapter. This goes for the whole book. You keep searching for the rest of the books you've started, only to be given a new story each time.

What would be very interesting would be to have some writer go and write endings for all these beginnings, for many of them are quite facinating. It's almost cruel to be given all these first chapters and know that there is no resolution for any of them.

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.

The concept behind this book - that it's a book about you, the reader; that it's a book about novel beginnings; that it's a fountain of creativity - is interesting and yes, I'll admit, intrigued me.

However, throughout the book, I kept getting the feeling that Calvino was standing behind me, pointing and laughing and nudging me, saying, "Yeah, yeah, get it? See what I'm doing now? I tricked you again! No, I'm pulling you this direction, not that. You're the reader, but I'm still the author and I have you under my thumb the entire time."

The book is set up in the second person, with You, the Reader, having just heard of Italo Calvino's new novel. Going into it, I understood that it would be different and would not read like a novel. However, now I know that I want a novel that reads like a novel, instead of a novel that teases me with ten novel openings, just to pull each away as soon as they get going. I also don't like the second person in that I am nothing like the You in the book, and I wouldn't have done half the things Calvino claims I am doing as I read the book. I didn't like the attitude behing the book.

Of course, this doesn't mean you won't like the book. In fact, this book might be exactly what you are looking for. After all, Calvino thinks it must be, for he addresses You all the time.