“If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller”: My Most Unusual Read Of 2024

Imagine reading ten different books in one

I received today’s reviewed book as a birthday present this year. “If on a Winter’s Night a Taveller” is an unusual book which is less of a traditional novel and more of a reflection on the nature of reading and writing:

Its protagonist, “the Reader”, buys a book at a bookstore and begins reading it. He reads the first chapter (which we also read as if we were “the Reader”) and becomes invested in the story. However, when he starts the next chapter, he realizes it’s from a completely different book.

It turns out there was a printing error in the publishing house, and the book he is reading isn’t the one advertised on the title. When he goes to the bookstore to resolve the confusion, he meets a girl — “the Other Reader” — who is there to complain about the same issue.

Together, they discover that the loop of “wrongly” printed book chapters extends even further. Alongside these two readers, we — the actual readers? — go through ten different chapters, each of which could be the beginning of completely different books. The story takes an Inception-like turn, and we even meet “the Writer”.

What I loved about this book are Calvino’s reflections on the process of reading and what it means to be a reader. He highlights a range of questions associated with the act reading:

• When you read, do you want to know about the writer’s personality, or it doesn’t matter to you?
• Can you separate the work from the writer?
• Do you feel the need to finish every book you start, even if you’re not enjoying it?

“If you think about it, reading is a necessarily individual act, far more than writing. If we assume that writing manages to go beyond the limitations of the author, it will continue to have a meaning only when it is read by a single person and passes through his mental circuits.”

I must admit, starting new novels over and over was a bit too much for me. It was clear that these stories would be abruptly interrupted, making it hard to truly get invested in them.

I really enjoyed exploring deconstruction as a literary concept, though.

If you’d like to explore it too, give “If On a Winter’s Night a Taveller” a try! I’ve also ChatGPTed (is that a verb yet?) some more book suggestions for you:

I never post book reviews without a beer recommendation. Books and beers — that’s what I do.

Today’s beer is Ice Breaker pale ale by the English brewery Greene King. It’s a solid, smooth pale ale that we enjoyed in the Scottish Highlands.

I’m so grateful to live in Scotland and have the opportunity to go to the Highlands as often as we do.