THE LIBRARY · THINKERS
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino (1923–1985) made experimental fiction joyful. If on a winter's night a traveler is addressed directly to 'you,' the reader — a novel about the act of reading that constantly interrupts itself.
If on a winter's night a traveler
Calvino's 1979 novel opens: 'You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.' Each chapter begins a new novel that is then interrupted. The book is ten novels that never resolve — and a meditation on reading itself.
The pleasure of the game
Calvino's work is playful where Beckett's is austere. Both deconstruct fiction, but Calvino does so with delight. The formal experiments are games the reader is invited to play, not puzzles that exclude.
Related reading
Georges Perec · What is Postmodern Literature · Experimental Literature