I remember when I was looking through books to read I saw the blurb about If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino and I thought it sounded very unique. I don’t think “unique” begins to describe what this book is! It really pushes you, the readers (me!), expectations, I never knew quite what I was going to read next…it was fun! I have a very very short attention span, however this felt like a series of short stories with narrations in between, I found it was able to keep my attention a bit better than some longer stories. I related to the reader opposite us the reader (me the reader? … you can imagine how confusing this gets) near the end of the story, “Don’t be amazed ifyou see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only in this way that reading proves fruitful for me. If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end” (254). He then goes in to saying that although he only reads a few pages, it holds “whole universes”. It’s jarring as a university student and a reader to read this constant use of “you” and second person perspective as it’s something I feel like we get harped on not to use is scholarly essays. I do however feel that its uniqueness also played a part in some confusion that was present in the story. I am almost positive I missed multiple things due to the constant perspective changes, sometimes when saying “I” it seemed the author was referring to himself but sometimes I couldn’t tell if the “I” was referring to me, the reader, from my POV.
In the lecture the question of how we read the book was asked. What form did this novel take as we consumed it? I just chose to read it as a free PDF version, as I’ve figured out that when I buy books for courses I never touch them again (no offence!). This changes the experience for me with this story as the author constantly refers to the book as an item. “you have turned toward a stack of If on a winter’s night a traveler fresh off the press, you have grasped a copy, and you have carried it to the cashier” (pg.6), I’m sure this quote would’ve been a little more jarring to me, the reader, if I ad actually experienced going to the bookstore to buy this book. I think this question applies to the book as the author constantly makes assumptions about the reader, like assuming the reader is reading a physical book.

My question is were any of the assumptions the author made about you correct? How did that make you feel if he made an assumption that was right? uneasy? If it was wrong did you feel like it took you out of the story?