A November Readalong

You all know how much I enjoy a good readalong, right? Well, I was pretty happy to learn that Melissa and Care are teaming up for a November Readalong of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. It's going to be pretty low key - begin reading in November, post some thoughts mid-month (if you want to), and wrap it all up December 1. We will also use the hashtag #ReadCalvino to keep in touch via twitter.

That sounds pretty simple, plus it's a short book and I've been curious about it for a long time. I'm especially glad to be reading this one with friends since Calvino intimidates me. Actually, anything even vaguely experimental intimidates me.

Here is the summary from goodreads:

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler  is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration--"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.  In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next. 

The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches--stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition--with explorations of how and why we read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter's Night  is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. "What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space."

Intrigued? Check out Melissa's and Care's announcement posts - they convinced me!