Book Review: If on a winter's night a traveler
Tags: reading
Author: Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator)
One sentence summary: An experimental postmodern text with a frame story, exploring the relationship of the reader to books.
Liked:
- very compelling: lots of detailed Nabokovian-style imagery and attention to detail
- fun to untangle mystery & relate different parts of the book
- includes the occasional enjoyable parody and light tone
Disliked:
- a little long for my taste, motifs felt repetitive
- meta nature of the book was kitschy at times
- weirdly heteronormative with shallow female characters
Personal rating: ★★★★☆