Customer Reviews
Masterclass of Storytelling - By: Jason King, 23 Dec 2008 
Many reviewers have praised the book for its cleverness but I'd just like to draw attention to the fact that every one of the vignettes (found within the main story) is a gemin its own right. Calvino is such a great writer (I'd also recommend 'Mr Palomar') that he is able to litter his novel with short tales, or even the beginnings of stories, that have you completely engrossed within a few paragraphs. This is the ultimate novel about storytelling & how central it is to our understanding of ourselves & our world. You will never view the novel or any other story formatin the same way again. Quite brilliant.
Five stars? Hello? Are you MAD? - By: Book Keeper, 08 Dec 2007 
What on earth are all these reviewers who've given this book five stars DOING with their lives?! Do they really believe this stream of self-absorbed intellectual showboating is worth the considerable effort that's required to finish it?
I read If On A Winter's Night...because it was prescribed by my book club (!) & I only struggled to the end because I wanted to see if Calvino's mental doodlings would eventually pinpoint some universal truth - surely the purpose of all serious literature?
Instead, it left me completely cold. There is nothing here for anyone who spends their time engagingin the real world, with real people. The book says nothing of any significance about love, courage, dignity, humility or any of the other great themes that frame our lives.
It is a chin-stroking, introspective dissertation on the nature of reading & objectivity. Life is too short!
Clever, but one for the post-modernists - By: Anapaest, 07 Nov 2007 
I bought this book having seen it mentionedin various lists for 'Greatest Books of the 20th Century'. If you are a fan of the post-modernist novel then this should please you as it plays with the structure of the novel & with ideas of literary conventionsin a very smart way. Calvino was clearly ahead of his time because authors like Peter Carey have clearly borrowed the conventionin books examining the act of writing books. If you are a real literary 'nut' or member of the post-modernist cognoscenti then you should enjoy the way that the book leads you along various twists & turns, forensically examining the nature of writing & the fallacy of the novel.
I personally found the book to be a little too clever & I never felt drawn into the self-referential world that is created by the central quest of the book. I greatly admire the intellectual trapeze act, but was left feeling a little cold.
the pleasure of reading - By: Belmiro Vilela, 27 Jul 2007 I've never read a book like this one... A story about books, authors, readers & about the pleasure of reading. We follow the adventures of a reader that is searching for a book that starts but which is abruptly interrupted. Who is this person? I think it is me, each time I pickup a new book...
No one with a passion for reading will be indifferent to this one.
Strange but beautifuly strange - By: Milan R., 21 Apr 2007 
WOW what a strange book!
I mean, have you ever thought about how huge your reading passion is? To be honest I didn't. Of course I love to read & on question "Without what you can imagine your life?" my answer always includes books but what would you do (notin literally of course) to find your missing book & to heal your reading fever? I'm not sure I ever felt that agonizing reading fever - until now. I know sounds silly but let me explain:
Of course when you enjoy enormouslyin book you're reading you'll finish itin one swallow & maybe (probably) reread some of its parts or entire book; maybe you'll copy some quotein your special notebook & memorize them etc. & that is I guess normal destiny after meeting right book with right reader. But imagine this situation: You're reading one of the best books you've ever read & you're aware of that fact so you're eating, drinking, breathing pages, one after another; film is rollingin your mind, you thinking about surprise on the next page & you're running to see what is behind the corner & then ... nothing... blank wall, no streets, no cars, no people, no nothing ... blank page.... OK maybe this is printing error, maybe after that blank page the story will continue ... imagine that state of mind: no rereading, no quotes, no following of your new friends destiny. You're feeling cheated. Isn't that horrible? Oh it is, it is...
And this book is about that sudden emptiness you're feeling & that desperate search to find next page. And yes, the main character is "You" (dear reader), & yes precisely you are feeling tachycardia & yes your blood pressure is risingin that dark, surreal chase ... for a book (imagine this!)
This postmodern novel is some sort of reader's nightmare, alwaysin search for your book or women (or both), or feeling writer's agony. This book is from time to time dark, totally surrealistic, & breathtakingly inventive. Did I mention that "You" are the main protagonist?
With its 260 pages some might think it's easy, light read but no, not easy read at all; sometimes you just need to rest a little bit to digest all what you eat so far (and it's a quite menu), this book is for savoring, for letting each sentence to melt slowly on your tongue. Or that is case with me who doesn't read several novelsin the same time. However for some of you who practice that, reading this book will be, most likely, different experience.
Here I'd like to include one quote I like very much:
"Reading is always this: there is a thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid, material object, which cannot be changed, & through this thing we measure ourselves against something else that is not present, something else that belongs to the immaterial, invisible world, because it can only be thought, imagined, or because it was once & is no longer, past, lost, unattainable,in the land of the dead...
... Or that is not present because it does not yet exist, something desired, feared, possible or impossible. Reading is going toward something that is about to be, & no one yet knows what it will be"
