If on a winter's night a traveler
Encyclopedia
If on a winter's night a traveler is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino
. The narrative is about a reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler. Every odd-numbered chapter is in the second person
, and tells the reader what he is doing in preparation for reading the next chapter. The even-numbered chapters are all single chapters from whichever book the reader is trying to read. The book was published in an English translation by William Weaver
in 1981.
, 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 man 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, 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 proceeding narrative chapters, such as after reading the first chapter of a detective novel, then the narrative story takes on a few common detective-style themes. There are also phrases and descriptions which will be eerily similar between the narrative and first-chapter chapters.
The ending exposes a hidden element to the entire book, where the actual first-chapter titles (which are the titles of the books that the reader is trying to read) make up a single coherent sentence, which would make a rather interesting start for a book.
The title If on a winter's night a traveler is a good indicator of this novel which is reminiscent of Laurence Sterne
's Tristram Shandy
. The book commences on a hypothesis of novelistic elements ("If...") on a when, a someone...would do what? According to this book, the entire novel, even its plot, is an open trajectory where even the author himself questions his motives of the writing process. This theme—a writer's objectivity—is also explored in Calvino's novel Mr. Palomar
, which explores if absolute objectivity is possible, or even agreeable. Other themes include the subjectivity of meaning (associated with post-structuralism
), the relationship between fiction and life, what makes an ideal reader and author, and authorial originality.
and World War II
. The capital is Örkko, and its principal resources are peat and by-products, bitumonous compounds. It seems to have been located somewhere on the Gulf of Bothnia
. 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" (If on a winter's night a traveler, pp. 44–45).
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, a communist nation which allegedly occupied part of Cimmeria during the latter's decline.
Ironically, languages named Cimmerian and Cimbrian have both existed. The Cimmerians
were an ancient tribal group, contemporary with the Scythians, who lived in southern Ukraine
. The Cimbrian language
still exists today, and is spoken by 2230 people in northern Italy, not too remote from Calvino's home in Turin
. Whether Calvino knew that his fictional languages were, in a sense, real is debatable.
. The book was also influenced by the author's membership in the Oulipo
; the structure of the text is said to be an adaptation of the structural semiology of A.J. Greimas.
included it in 69th place in a list of "100 novels everyone should read" in 2009, describing it as a "playful postmodernist puzzle".
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 didn't 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.
Novelist and lecturer Scarlett Thomas
uses it to teach innovative contemporary fiction, as an example of different kinds of narrative techniques.
Sting named his 2009 album If On a Winter's Night... after the book.
Bill Ryder-Jones (born 1983) originally the lead guitarist with The Coral from 1996 until 2008, released in 2011 the album If...a soundtrack to Calvino' novel.
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
. The narrative is about a reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler. Every odd-numbered chapter is in the second person
Second-person narrative
The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you"....
, and tells the reader what he is doing in preparation for reading the next chapter. The even-numbered chapters are all single chapters from whichever book the reader is trying to read. The book was published in an English translation by William Weaver
William Weaver
William Fense Weaver is an English language translator of modern Italian literature.-Biography:William Weaver is perhaps best known for his translations of the work of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino, and has translated many other Italian authors over the course of a career spanning more than fifty...
in 1981.
Structure
The book begins with a chapter on the art and nature of readingReading (process)
Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention of constructing or deriving meaning . It is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas...
, 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 man 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, who is also addressed in her own chapter, separately, and also in the second person.
Alternating between second-person narrative
Second-person narrative
The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you"....
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
Second-person narrative
The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you"....
passages develop into a fairly cohesive novel that puts its two protagonists on the track of an international book-fraud conspiracy, a mischievous translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
, 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 proceeding narrative chapters, such as after reading the first chapter of a detective novel, then the narrative story takes on a few common detective-style themes. There are also phrases and descriptions which will be eerily similar between the narrative and first-chapter chapters.
The ending exposes a hidden element to the entire book, where the actual first-chapter titles (which are the titles of the books that the reader is trying to read) make up a single coherent sentence, which would make a rather interesting start for a book.
The title If on a winter's night a traveler is a good indicator of this novel which is reminiscent of Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
's Tristram Shandy
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years....
. The book commences on a hypothesis of novelistic elements ("If...") on a when, a someone...would do what? According to this book, the entire novel, even its plot, is an open trajectory where even the author himself questions his motives of the writing process. This theme—a writer's objectivity—is also explored in Calvino's novel Mr. Palomar
Mr. Palomar
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...
, which explores if absolute objectivity is possible, or even agreeable. Other themes include the subjectivity of meaning (associated with post-structuralism
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
), 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 IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The capital is Örkko, and its principal resources are peat and by-products, bitumonous compounds. It seems to have been located somewhere on the Gulf of Bothnia
Gulf of Bothnia
The Gulf of Bothnia is the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It is situated between Finland's west coast and Sweden's east coast. In the south of the gulf lie the Åland Islands, between the Sea of Åland and the Archipelago Sea.-Name:...
. 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" (If on a winter's night a traveler, pp. 44–45).
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, a communist nation which allegedly occupied part of Cimmeria during the latter's decline.
Ironically, languages named Cimmerian and Cimbrian have both existed. The Cimmerians
Cimmerians
The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...
were an ancient tribal group, contemporary with the Scythians, who lived in southern Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. The Cimbrian language
Cimbrian language
Cimbrian refers to any of several local Upper German varieties spoken in northeastern Italy. The speakers of the language are known as Zimbern....
still exists today, and is spoken by 2230 people in northern Italy, not too remote from Calvino's home in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. Whether Calvino knew that his fictional languages were, in a sense, real is debatable.
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 NabokovVladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
. The book was also influenced by the author's membership in the Oulipo
Oulipo
Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais...
; the structure of the text is said to be an adaptation of the structural semiology of A.J. Greimas.
Legacy and opinion
The TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
included it in 69th place in a list of "100 novels everyone should read" in 2009, describing it as a "playful postmodernist puzzle".
Author David Mitchell
David Mitchell (author)
David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist. He has written five novels, two of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize.- Biography :...
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 didn't 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.
Novelist and lecturer Scarlett Thomas
Scarlett Thomas
Scarlett Thomas, born 1972 in Hammersmith, is an English author. She has written eight novels, including The End of Mr. Y and PopCo, and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Kent.-Biography:...
uses it to teach innovative contemporary fiction, as an example of different kinds of narrative techniques.
Sting named his 2009 album If On a Winter's Night... after the book.
Bill Ryder-Jones (born 1983) originally the lead guitarist with The Coral from 1996 until 2008, released in 2011 the album If...a soundtrack to Calvino' novel.
See also
- One Thousand and One Nights
- Pale FirePale FirePale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional John Shade, with a foreword and lengthy commentary by a neighbor and academic colleague of the poet. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are...
- Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
- Self-referenceSelf-referenceSelf-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...