If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
- ISBN-10
- 0151436894
- ISBN-13
- 9780151436897
- Pages
- 260
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1981
- Publisher
- Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
- Author
- Italo Calvino
Description
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Introduction by Peter Washington; Translation by William Weaver Italo Calvino's masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book's central character. Based on a witty analogy between the reader's desire to finish the story and the lover's desire to consummate his or her passion, IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book--IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER, by Italo Calvino, of course--are constantly and comically frustrated. In between chasing missing chapters of the book, the hapless readers tangle with an international conspiracy, a rogue translator, an elusive novelist, a disintegrating publishing house, and several oppressive governments. The result is a literary labyrinth of storylines that interrupt one another--an Arabian Nights of the postmodern age.
