Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Si una noche de invierno un viajero
    Unavailable
    Si una noche de invierno un viajero
    Unavailable
    Si una noche de invierno un viajero
    Ebook313 pages5 hours

    Si una noche de invierno un viajero

    By Italo Calvino

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    «La empresa de tratar de escribir novelas "apócrifas", que me imagino escritas por un autor que no soy yo y que no existe, la llevé a sus últimas consecuencias en este libro. Es una novela sobre el placer de leer novelas; el protagonista es el lector, que empieza diez veces a leer un libro que por vicisitudes ajenas a su voluntad no consigue acabar. Tuve que escribir, pues, el inicio de diez novelas de autores imaginarios, todos en cierto modo distintos de mí y distintos entre sí: una novela toda sospechas y sensaciones confusas; una toda sensaciones corpóreas y sanguíneas; una introspectiva y simbólica; una revolucionaria existencial; una cínico-brutal; una de manías obsesivas; una lógica y geométrica; una erótico-perversa; una telúrico-primordial; una apocalíptica alegórica. Más que identificarme con el autor de cada una de las diez novelas, traté de identificarme con el lector...» Italo Calvino
    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherSiruela
    Release dateOct 23, 2012
    ISBN9788415723219
    Unavailable
    Si una noche de invierno un viajero
    Author

    Italo Calvino

    Italo Calvino (1923–1985) was born in Cuba and grew up in San Remo, Italy. He began as an essayist and a journalist but is best known for his fiction, including Invisible Cities, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Marcovaldo, and Mr. Palomar.

    Related to Si una noche de invierno un viajero

    Titles in the series (32)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Eduardo Lago

      Jan 3, 2019

      Eduardo Lago
      7 min read

    • Article

      Antonio Muñoz Molina

      Apr 2, 2019

      Antonio Muñoz Molina
      6 min read

    • Article

      Confesiones De Escritor

      Oct 2, 2020

      Guadalupe Nettel (Ciudad de México, 1973) es autora de El huésped (finalista del Premio Herralde 2005) y sus posteriores y muy celebradas obras Pétalos y otras historias incómodas, El cuerpo en que nací y Después del invierno (Premio Herralde de Nove

      2 min read

    • Article

      Soy Mitómana Porque Mi Mundo Me Ha Hecho Así

      Sep 26, 2023

      Viví dos años en el edificio en el que se crió Scorsese. Creo que esta primera frase es suficiente para continuar leyendo. Buscaba piso en Manhattan, como la protagonista de una película indie, muy indie. Los vi grandes y pequeños, arriba y abajo; to

      2 min read

    • Article

      Confesiones De Escritor

      Apr 4, 2021

      1. ¿Cuándo empezó a escribir? Mis primeras publicaciones ocurren en el campo del periodismo, que luego abandoné para dedicarme a mis estudios, primero de licenciatura en la Universidad de Barcelona y luego de doctorado en la Universidad de California

      3 min read

    • Article

      María Baranda Y Su Mapa Poético Para Niños

      May 2, 2022

      ¿ Cómo acercar la poesía a los niños? A decir de la poeta y promotora cultural María Baranda (Ciudad de México, 1962), una de las voces más prestigiadas de la literatura mexicana contemporánea y con un racimo de premios entre los que destacan el Gati

      3 min read

    • Article

      Confesiones De Escritor

      May 6, 2021

      Alan Pauls es escritor, crítico y periodista. Fue profesor de Teoría literaria en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UBA, jefe de Redacción de la revista»Página/30 y subeditor de_Radar, suplemento cultural del diarioPágina/12. Es autor, entre ot

      2 min read

    • Article

      Declaración de Intenciones

      Nov 4, 2021

      Qué manía con prohibir libros y con la cultura de la cancelación. En pleno 2021. Una jueza de Castellón ha retirado cautelarmente lotes de libros de temática LGTBI donados por el Ayuntamiento de la ciudad a varios institutos y a un centro socioeducat

      3 min read

    • Article

      Setecientos Años Divinos

      Sep 7, 2021

      Setecientos Años Divinos
      4 min read

    Reviews for Si una noche de invierno un viajero

    4/5

    2,728 ratings116 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This would have to be one of the most unusually good books I have read. It is not quite a novel and not quite a collection of short stories, organised in an unusual way. It is partly written in the second person (Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City was my first second-person novel) and on several occasions, the author speaks directly to the reader (a literary technique known as "authorial intrusion"). The main story is structured using numbered chapters, interspersed with the beginnings of several books (with the relevant book names as chapter headings) that relate directly to the main story. It is rather complex in terms of its structure and I couldn't help thinking it is very much a "post-modern" novel. But it works. I am often surprised by the number of books that are about books and authors, a bit like 42nd Street - a musical within a musical. But this book is very clever. While at times I couldn't help thinking that Calvino had turned a number of "false starts" into a publication, it is too good to have been written so perfunctorily. Two stand-out parts work for me. First, Calvino addresses two types of writers (pp. 173-4):One of the two is a productive writer, the other a tormented writer. The tormented writer watches the productive writer filling pages with uniform lines, the manuscript growing in a pile of neat pages. In a little while the book will be finished: certainly a best seller - the tormented writer thinks with a certain contempt but also with envy. He considers the productive writer no more than a clever craftsman, capable of turning out machine-made novels catering to the taste of the public; but he cannot repress a strong feeling of envy for that man who expresses himself with such methodological confidence... [The productive writer] feels [the tormented writer] is struggling with something obscure, a tangle, a road to be dug leading no one knows where... and he is overcome with admiration. Not only admiration, but also envy; because he feels how limited his work is, how superficial compared with what the tormented writer is seeking.I certainly feel like each of these authors depending on the type of writing I am engaged in. That self-consciousness is part of the process is something that Calvino weaves into the plot perfectly. Second, Calvino picks up on how I read (p. 254):Reading is a discontinuous and fragmentary operation.What I find most interesting about this reflection is that Calvino's work, or at least the several of his works I have read so far, all seem to play to the discontinuous and fragmentary reader. The structure of this work, much like Invisible Cities and Mr Palomar, suits a style of reader who is unable to read in large chunks of time. While not being able to read long and uninterrupted is far from ideal, Calvino's work is presented in convenient and memorable chunks that suit the fragmentary and disrupted peace of the post-modern worker. There is still a little more of Calvino's work for me to read, but I have now covered his most famous works. And I am delighted to have "discovered" Marcovaldo in a Shanghai bookstore which introduced me to one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century only a few years ago.
    • 4/5
      A crazy ride of a story, in which the Reader is the main character who is simply trying to read a book, but who gets frustrated at every turn and by more and more outlandish disruptions. Each new manuscript promises to be the completion of the previous, but only introduces yet another new book, which, in turn, is cut short and unfinished. Chapters of this main plot (which also contains an Other Reader, with whom the Reader carries out a love story of sorts, and a romp of a detective story as well) alternate with the actual first chapters of the unfinished manuscripts, which themselves leave the (R/r)eader genuinely frustrated and wanting more.In short, it's a hoot, although it does get a bit bogged down in its own absurdities toward the end, I feel. Think Inspector Clouseau meets Arabian Nights meets a Choose Your Own Adventure book in which all the choices are just tantalizingly out of your reach, and then throw in a healthy pinch of musings on the nature of readers, authors, books, and the act of reading itself.
    • 5/5
      What an experience this book was! It took me two tries to finish it, but I sailed through on my second try. I would warn anyone who wants to read this postmodern novel, to allot enough time to it as it is not an easy read. Within this novel itself are ten unfinished and unrelated novels. If that doesn't scare you away, prepare yourself for some intriguing reading. Know that this novel is about books and reading. The plot weaves around the inserted novels which are incorporated for a reason you, the Reader, will only find out at the end. I was totally absorbed in this book my second go round. The only thing I found disconcerting was that the writing was so good, I often wondered if some of what the author was trying to say was simply floating away over my head. It is too involved a novel for me to ever consider giving it a reread, but I would love to try another Calvino novel...after a short break to unwind!
    • 5/5
      This was every bit as good as the last time that I read it.

      For me, this is an 'event book', one of those novels that divides reading into a before and after. Wikipedia quotes David Mitchell as saying that the book has dated and is less impressive than it was. I suspect that I know which writer's work will still be read a hundred years from now (and Calvino's already been dead for three decades)... IOAWNAT is an education for any novelist wishing to experiment with the form. And at the same time, it really is laugh-out-loud funny for much of the time. Echoes of Borges' 'Fictions' reverberate around this novel and it's none the worse for that. It has to be read for Chapter 9 alone, the Ataguitania sequence, one of the smartest, funniest passages of writing in modern fiction.

      In case you don't know this book, I'm not going to give away anything about the story. Suffice to say, I loved it but for those looking for a 'safe' read, this isn't it.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful, brilliant, smart and weird. All I need from book to love it.
    • 4/5
      There are some books that you can come back and read for leisure, some for fun, some so that you can understand it better;its symbols and innuendos..
      This book, it can be read for all those reasons.. summed up together. Looking for another read of this...
    • 3/5
      I have a lot of disjointed thoughts about this book but then the book was disjointed so that makes sense. so this is about reading, about writing. It's clever. When I read a book like this I am impressed with the cleverness but when I think of it as a book that is enjoyable to read, it isn't that. This was work. It did not pull me along. So here are my random thoughts. The book starts out with a train, small town and I am reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky so the tow remind me of each other. The next thing I notice is that the book is about writing and the process of writing, how the writer develops the story and the how the reader approaches the story. From this, I am reminded of Stephen King's On Writing. The writing is postmodernist narrative and it is a Frame story. We first have the story from one perspective followed by commentary of the story from another perspective and the story keeps changing. Each chapter divided into two parts. You, the reader, is a character in the book. It is a "Quest" to finish the book. The journey, arrival/frustration, final ordeal, goal. Also for me, I notice that as the reader goes from book to book, the creativity of the writer deteriorates, more use of ghost writer, formulas, plagiarism, computers and less story telling and more sex and erotica. I know that this is gifted writing, I appreciated much, but I really did not enjoy the time I spent on it.
    • 3/5
      I loved how Calvino describes reading in the opening chapter and then how he inserts bits of the writing and reading process throughout the book. I'm also frustrated, because like the Reader, I want to continue reading all of the beginnings. There were a few bits, namely Chapter 9, that were a bit too Kafkaesque for my taste.
    • 3/5
      Very funny at the beginning, before it just gets too complicated and doesnt seem to make a lot of sense any more. The end is quite good again.
    • 4/5
      Playful satire on the act of reading and the struggle to create the perfect novel. Calvino toys with the conventions of genre and the issues of national literature and censorship, creating a sense of vertigo for the reader while always exercising a firm authorial control. Brilliant. Try this if you like Borges or Eco.
    • 3/5
      This is a book that, if it sounds interesting to you, it is probably worth trying.As it turned out, I really didn't like it.It has some interesting things to say on reading and writing, but I had a couple of major problems with it.The first, is that the story is written in the second person. Outside of a Chose Your Own Adventure, I've always found second person POV very distancing from the story, even when "you" is clearly a character in the book, not the reader. In this case, "you" is explicitly the person reading the book, and "you, the reader" are unambiguously male, which I am not. It helped, somewhat, when I mentally recast the POV character as Bob.The other problem I had may be partly caused by the translation, certainly it is partly due to my personal tastes. That problem is the books Bob starts, but never manages to finish. They make up half the book and I had two issues with them. 1)They all felt like they were written by the same person. Okay, they were, but in the book they're supposed to be by different authors and in different genres, but they never captured that feeling. Maybe they were more distinct in the original or maybe this was just beyond the author's ability. (I suppose it's possible this was a deliberate choice too.)2)They were all boring and I honestly couldn't understand why Bob would go to such lengths to try to finish reading them. The most promising one involved two characters having a hard time disposing of a corpse, but it was full of just as many dull introspective passages and poorly flowing flashbacks as all the rest. What should have been tense, or funny, ended up a snoozefest.I don't regret reading it, it was short enough that it didn't massively overstay its welcome, but I have no urge to reread it or read anything else by the author.
    • 4/5
      An interesting attempt at involving the reader as more than just a passive observer. What appears at first to be a simple printer's error evolves into something much weirder. Ultimately though, I liked the first and last framing chapters the best, and I liked some of the "first chapters" but disliked others. That's the best description for this that I can think of, it's a book of first chapters.
    • 4/5
      I had really high expectations for this one. I did love some parts, especially the last two chapters, but other parts were an absolute chore and I couldn't keep interested. However, it's undeniably clever, very imaginative and a worthy read.
    • 4/5
      One of those books that I had to force myself to keep reading because I kept asking myself, "what's the point." However, as experimental novels go, this is a blockbuster. It makes one question not only the nature of reality, but also one's own sanity. From Wikipedia: "This book is about a reader trying to read a book called _If on a winter's night a traveler_. The first chapter and every odd-numbered chapter are in the second person, and tell the reader what he is doing in preparation for reading the next chapter. The even-numbered chapters are all single chapters from whichever book the reader is trying to read." Sound confusing, well, it is!

    • 3/5
      I'm not sure what to make of this. To start with I thought it was trying to be too clever; addressing the reader as "you" and with the first line being "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler." which did make me feeling that this book was going to be rather pretentious. But it grew on me. The story (told in alternate chapters) and the books that are read in the story do end up making some sort of sense. About mid-way I was a bit frustrated that the book chapters weren't written in a distinctly different tone from the intermediate chapters. Even the diary chapter reads in the same tone, similar language, style of writing and so on. But if they're written by different authors, surely the tone should differ. But by the end even that made a certain kind of sense. As an exercise it's very interesting. As an enjoyable read, I'm afraid it didn't work for me. I found it difficult to get immersed in something that contains the starts of 10 different books, but never gets to an end.
    • 5/5
      A book about reading and books, Calvino creates a post-modern story that actually involves the reader in the novel's plot. Every second chapter is told in the second-person as you, the reader, continue your quest for the eponymous book; while the odd-numbered chapters show Calvino's proficiency at writing different genres, from western to mystery. Though unique at the time of writing, in the current post-modern scene, it may seem hackneyed; nevertheless, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller is a delight for those who love to read.
    • 5/5
      There are terribly few authors that can write experimentally while remaining humorous, engaging, and heartfelt. Calvino is one of the bunch. Each chapter of this book manages to capture the reader's attention in new and unexpected ways- all while maintaining a separate narrative and thematic thread. Probably a great place to start for someone new to his work...though my favorites remain Invisible CIties and The Baron in the Trees.
    • 3/5
      I liked the idea of the stories separated and mixed, but I wanted smething more to happen to bring everything together at the end. Entertaining but not absorbing
    • 4/5
      I am not quite sure whether this book is arrogantly pretentious and convoluted, full of vain conceit, or if it is clever and elegant and insightful. One thing I am sure of is that this book about reading and readers and the truth and trickery in books will definitely delight those who like their books meta.It is even meta enough to have the description perfectly contained within the story of the book:'I have had the idea of writing a novel composed only of beginnings of novels. The protagonist could be a Reader who is continually interrupted. The Reader buys the new novel A by the author Z. But it is a defective copy, he can't go beyond the beginning... He returns it to the bookshop to have the volume exchanged...I could write it all in the second person: you, Reader... I could also introduce a young lady, the Other Reader, and a counterfeiter-translator... and an old writer who keeps a diary like this diary'If encountering that sort of thing in your fiction feels like cheap trickery and laziness, this is probably not the book for you. But if you like the cleverness and the self awareness I have never encountered a book that does it quite like this one.
    • 3/5
      A strange and imaginative book. It's a fictional narrative of the required length but I couldn't say it was actually a novel. Very clever.
    • 3/5
      "Reader, it is time for your tempest-tossed vessel to come to port. What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library?"This is from very near the end. My relief that this book would finally come to a close was palpable. I liked this book (some of the stories were quite riveting) but on the whole it taxed my poor brain. I shall take solace in a ripping good yarn next; one that has a typical format with an ending ... and breathe in the sweet familiarity.
    • 2/5
      I could not get into this one.
    • 5/5
      "The book I'm looking for," says the blurred figure, who holds out a volume similar to yours, "is the one that gives the sense of the world after the end of the world, the sense that the world is the end of everything that there is in the world, that the only thing there is in the world is the end of the world."
      ........
      Never in my life have a read a book even remotely like this one. Nothing I could say would prepare you for the journey it takes you on, but trust that it is a ride well worth experiencing. I finished this book last night and I am still reeling after my read!

      "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" features you, the Reader, and your journey to find a complete copy of Italo Calvino's (and a host of other authors) new book. It's a book full of beginnings and a frustrating lack of endings. Your reading is constantly interrupted, publishing error one moment or being jumped by a gang of UFO worshiping thugs the next, and all the while you're falling in love with another reader. If you don't mind a bit of confusion and a lot of weird, then pick this book up.
    • 3/5
      I liked how he would write the first chapters of a multitude of novels in different genres, breaking off when the action came to its most exciting moment, over and over again. I'm not so sure the framing story actually makes much sense but I'd have to read it again to be certain.
    • 4/5
      Not so gem-like as Borges, but still a really clever master of meta-fiction.
    • 3/5
      I read this after reading and liking Cosmicomics. After what seemed like a strong opening, I found this book to be too repetitive. I've noticed that most reviews of the book are very positive. I like the writing style which is similar to Cosmicomics. I may still try another book by Calvino, which I hope I'll like more, but I can't recommend this one, except to say that other people liked it.
    • 3/5
      Mr. Calvino is a superb writer. Technically, he's one of the best I've read. I love the way he strings words together and the way he conveys his meaning. The 10 short stories embedded in the main story was also excellent. However, the main story itself confused me. It was so weird that sometimes I just have to stop reading. It was a love story and at the same time you just don't feel that emotion. I really don't like the Reader and the Other Reader. I just did not appreciate it.
    • 5/5
      If on a winter's night a traveler explores the experience of reading, and the place of the reader, author, text and rest of the world in said endeavor. The Reader (who is a character in the novel) finds his attempts to read the novel frustrated by incomplete texts, interrupted narrations, false translations, and other diversions, so that the novel is made up of the beginning of ten different novels as well as the Reader's own adventures with another reader and with the truth of the novel. Delightful, witty and inventive.
    • 3/5
      At the beginning of this book, I just loved it. It had a character that I've never seen in a book before - ME! Calvino includes the reader in his cast of characters and I was constantly amazed at how accurately he described what I was thinking as I was reading. He would say - and now you're thinking this woman... and he was exactly right. But, what I didn't like about this book it the overall flow of the story. The book is organized with around the story of 2 avid readers who find a book and start reading. Every other chapter is the actual book they are reading, however something always happens so they never complete the book. So for every other chapter, you start a story, it draws you in, it's incredibly well written and then at an exciting point it abruptly ends due to a variety of contrived reasons (it was published incorrectly and only some of the pages are there, the book is torn and the rest is missing, etc.). There are 12 different stories in this book. After about story 5, I just didn't want to be drawn into another incomplete story. I really felt like I was being manipulated. And in reality, that is what authors do - manipulate the emotions of their readers. I would have been ok with it, if he had just finished the stories!
    • 4/5
      If you had told me that there was a novel about reading that I should read, I would have politely nodded and smiled and quietly forgotten it the moment you walked away. But having picked up Calvino's book, only knowing that it was "strange" and "difficult" and had various points of view, I loved it. I've ready 2nd-person short stories and memoirs, but never novels, so the novelty of the style was definitely appealing to me. Ultimately, even if it doesn't resonate with you emotionally (which is why I did not give it 5 stars) it's a fascinating and original statement he makes on the nature of story-telling.