Great review!Cant go wrong with Calvino.I've read invisible cities before and enjoyed it quite a lot.Its very uniqueYou've sold me on if on a winters night a traveller.Cant wait to see more book reviews on this channel.
Thank you so much, my friend! 😃 I definitely want to read more by Calvino. I have a copy of The Baron in the Trees and the two Cosmicomics books. Hope you enjoy If on a winter's night a traveler. Please let me know what you think of it. Have an amazing day, and happy reading!
Thanks for an interesting presentation. I've started reading the book and I enjoyed the free flowing and the humor. . I felt that I'm missing something...your analysis and thoughts help me gaining an insight on what's I've been reading. Thanks for the guide...now I can keep reading this unconventional book
I'm so happy to hear the video has helped, Lily! 😃 This is a challenging read, even a (purposely) frustrating read, but I got much out of it. I hope you enjoy the rest of the novel. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have an excellent day!
Quite a puzzle of a book … and yet such a rewarding reading … I am never tired of exploring If on a Winter’s Night… thank you for the insightful session…❤
That is one of the amazing things about this novel: how can it be so frustrating and so satisfying at the same time? 😃 So happy to hear you enjoyed the video, Fazal. Have a wonderful weekend, my friend!
Thank you so much, my friend! 😃 I will definitely read The Baron in the Trees, as I got a copy recently. Please let me know what you think of Winter's night. Have a wonderful day, and happy reading!
Hi Jorge,thanks for your great discussion of this book.It is my favourite Calvino novel,one of the most inventive books I have ever read.The opening sentences of every novel are so important in drawing the reader in to its world and this book succeeds in this remit so well and each chapter is so different from its predecessor.I can think of few books as original,perhaps Pale Fire or Life:A User's Manual .I believe Calvino was a member of the Oulipo group which I included Perec and Queneau,two similarly experimental writers whom I much admire.You have made me want to take out my old copy of the book and re read it for about the fifth time,so thanks although the end of your video certainly fooled me! Have a great weekend.
Hello Richard! 😃 Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I totally agree about the book's inventiveness. Life A User's Manual, what a fantastic text! I still need to read Pale Fire, believe it or not. I found out about the OULIPO connection after I made this video, but I do plan to revisit Perec at some point, and to talk about Queneau too. Have a fantastic weekend, my friend, and enjoy this great novel once again!
As a Calvino completist, I urge you to read him. He began as a realist and moved slowly toward a one of a kind combination of fantasy, science fiction, and comedy. Borges inspired a collection of funny tales called The Cosmicomics. The Our Ancestors Trilogy, made up of The Non Existent Knight, The Cloven Viscount, and The Baron in the Trees, is worth reading. Gore Vidal wrote an excellent survey of Calvino's writing "Fabulous Calvino." Calvino compared writing to putting jelly on bread. The fantasy was the jelly and realism the bread. The realism is the support the fantasy needs.
Hello Donald! 😃 I definitely need to read more by him. I have copies of the Cosmicomics (the two separate volumes) and The Baron in the Trees. I found the premise of The Cloven Viscount to be intriguing to say the least! I was not aware of his more realist beginnings. What an amazing analogy with the bread and jelly! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have a fantastic weekend!
This book is on my "To Buy" list for a few years now and you have convinced me to buy it before i buy any of my other 383 books on my list. 😅 Keep up the good work!
Haha, hope you enjoy it, my friend! 😃 I can tell you it's one of the most original novels I've ever read. Please let me know what you think about it. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and have an excellent weekend!
@@Késin_10.136 My “find” reading list approaching 100. Please add to the top of your list Fernando Pessoa’s Portuguese masterpiece “The Book of Disquiet” the Penguin masterful translation by Richard Zenith. My first edition falling apart from nights of opening anywhere to ground myself in this shitty world with a degree of equanimity. Miss Jenny
The, let's say, obsession readers have with complete stories may be connected to the likelihood of our lives being truncated before reaching the last conclusion (even though there might not have been any definitive end). This fear of incompleteness drives us to (unconsciously) desire proper closure in everything we begin. From a different angle, the passages you read reminded me of the scrolling gesture so prevalent in today's culture, but applied to a physical book rather than an electronic device, where new fragmented stories overlap previous ones in an endless loop.
Tremendous insight, Leandro! 😃 I like the notion that, since a sense of closure is often absent in our lives, we turn to books (and films, and other art forms) for it. The proverbial "sense of an ending." Regarding scrolling, yes; that's another area in which Calvino was ahead of his time. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend! Have an excellent weekend!
Glad you enjoyed it, Francesco! 😃 What a great connection: Rulfo and Calvino. Comala is definitely an invisible town, if you ask me. Maybe Onetti's Santa María too. Modiano's Paris... Thank you once again for watching and commenting, my friend! Have an amazing weekend, and happy reading!
What a coincidence, a few weeks ago I subscribed to your channel. And I'm currently on the last hundred pages of the book. I'll save the video to watch once I'm done. I already had a slight familiarity with Italo Calvino, but "Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" is a completely unique beast.
Wonderful, my friend! 😃 Please let me know what you think of the book once you're done. This novel really is something else. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for subscribing! Have a fantastic weekend!
I'm doing the grab the book and read it based on title, cover, maybe short blurb more and more. Like you, yes, may lead to disappointment, but when it works, can be such a pristine reading experience. 😊🙏🏽
I know, right?! 😃 It's such a refreshing approach. Some back cover descriptions are completely misleading. One of the worst experiences I have had in this context was with García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I'll share an experience with this method in a video at some point. Thank you so much for sharing your own experience, my friend!
@@JorgesCorner Oh nice, interested to hear more on that as and when. Two recent reads I picked just based on the title and vibes are The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama and Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa. Loved both. Such quick reads, gentle and beautiful vibes. 😁 Gave me more courage to try this method. The other one I'm doing is asking a willing bookworm friend to give me a book to read and I'll do it, no questions asked.
That would be nice to try too, yes! 😃 I've sometimes wanted to ask a random person at a bookstore what their favorite book is, but I guess I'm too shy!
Great discussion. I also liked Invisible Cities. My favourite by Calvino so far is The Complete Cosmicomics, SF almost but Calvino style. If On A Winter's Night opened brilliantly for me. Then gradually, the book lost its way with me and I was left disappointed. Maybe some day I will appreciate it more. For now, I really enjoyed the discussion. 🙏🏽
Thank you so much, Paromita! 😃 I still need to read the Cosmicomics. I've had the books for years, now that I think about it... It's totally understandable about If on a winter's night a traveler. It took me a long time to make up my mind to read it. I had bought it even before I got my copy of Invisible Cities, which is the book I would recommend as a starting point with Calvino (based on my limited knowledge). So glad you enjoyed the video, my friend!
Jorge, your two cents on Calvino are more valuable than any literature course anywhere…….. Merci! I also have in my library Calvino’s remarkably disturbing “Numbers in the Dark”, masterfully translated from the Italian by Tim Parks…….both suitable shelf companions to my Borges and Márques collections. You are a remarkable young man Jorge, who gives me so much real pleasure. Miss Jenny
Thank you so much, Miss Jenny, for watching and commenting, and for your kind words! 😃 It makes me so happy to hear you enjoyed the video. Ah, Calvino, JLB, and GGM: that's a combination! Numbers in the Dark sounds intriguing. I need to experience his short stories. Have an amazing weekend, my friend, and happy reading!
Thank you so much, Daniel! 😃 So glad you enjoyed it. I was hoping it wouldn't be too frustrating, haha. Have an amazing weekend, my friend, and happy reading!
No, it is not alright to not like this book! 🙂 While I was for a short time of my life a big David Mitchell fan - somewhat I lost that fandom ... I still think Black Swan Green is his best book. - - - OULIPO, my friend, OULIPO. More Queneau and Perec, please. 🙂
I read about the OULIPO connection after I did the video. 😃 More to come about this, my friend! Black Swan Green has been on my list for a while now. I've also heard good things about number9dream. Have an excellent weekend, and happy reading and film watching!
Hola, Marina! Thank you so much for your messages, my friend! 😃 I miss you too! I've been experiencing some health issues, so I'm taking it easy for a while and focusing on work and family. I hope to be back to making videos soon! Thanks again for your kind words, and have an amazing day!
In this UA-cam era of DNFing ; reading one chapter to decide if we keep or unhaul ; that Calvino book doesn’t seem that surreal :) André Gide coined the expression “mise en abîme”, he took the terms from heraldry to describe the type of meta fiction used here (a book about a writer who’s writing the book you’re reading).
Haha, you're absolutely right, my friend! 😃 The guy was way ahead of his time, in so many ways. I have found Gide's concept to be so useful when discussing certain types of modernist and postmodernist works. Speaking of which, I need to talk about Gide. Hopefully soon! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have an amazing weekend!
Great review!Cant go wrong with Calvino.I've read invisible cities before and enjoyed it quite a lot.Its very uniqueYou've sold me on if on a winters night a traveller.Cant wait to see more book reviews on this channel.
Thank you so much, my friend! 😃 I definitely want to read more by Calvino. I have a copy of The Baron in the Trees and the two Cosmicomics books. Hope you enjoy If on a winter's night a traveler. Please let me know what you think of it. Have an amazing day, and happy reading!
Thanks for an interesting presentation.
I've started reading the book and I enjoyed the free flowing and the humor. . I felt that I'm missing something...your analysis and thoughts help me gaining an insight on what's I've been reading. Thanks for the guide...now I can keep reading this unconventional book
I'm so happy to hear the video has helped, Lily! 😃 This is a challenging read, even a (purposely) frustrating read, but I got much out of it. I hope you enjoy the rest of the novel. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have an excellent day!
Quite a puzzle of a book … and yet such a rewarding reading … I am never tired of exploring If on a Winter’s Night… thank you for the insightful session…❤
That is one of the amazing things about this novel: how can it be so frustrating and so satisfying at the same time? 😃 So happy to hear you enjoyed the video, Fazal. Have a wonderful weekend, my friend!
Great video, Jorge! The only Calvino I've read so far is "Baron on the trees", liked it a lot. Looking forward to read this one.
Thank you so much, my friend! 😃 I will definitely read The Baron in the Trees, as I got a copy recently. Please let me know what you think of Winter's night. Have a wonderful day, and happy reading!
ahhaha i love the ending. it made me smile :) thanks
😄 So glad you enjoyed it, my friend! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Have an excellent day!
Hi Jorge,thanks for your great discussion of this book.It is my favourite Calvino novel,one of the most inventive books I have ever read.The opening sentences of every novel are so important in drawing the reader in to its world and this book succeeds in this remit so well and each chapter is so different from its predecessor.I can think of few books as original,perhaps Pale Fire or Life:A User's Manual .I believe Calvino was a member of the Oulipo group which I included Perec and Queneau,two similarly experimental writers whom I much admire.You have made me want to take out my old copy of the book and re read it for about the fifth time,so thanks although the end of your video certainly fooled me! Have a great weekend.
Hello Richard! 😃 Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I totally agree about the book's inventiveness. Life A User's Manual, what a fantastic text! I still need to read Pale Fire, believe it or not. I found out about the OULIPO connection after I made this video, but I do plan to revisit Perec at some point, and to talk about Queneau too. Have a fantastic weekend, my friend, and enjoy this great novel once again!
As a Calvino completist, I urge you to read him.
He began as a realist and moved slowly toward a one of a kind combination of fantasy, science fiction, and comedy.
Borges inspired a collection of funny tales called The Cosmicomics.
The Our Ancestors Trilogy, made up of The Non Existent Knight, The Cloven Viscount, and The Baron in the Trees, is worth reading.
Gore Vidal wrote an excellent survey of Calvino's writing "Fabulous Calvino."
Calvino compared writing to putting jelly on bread. The fantasy was the jelly and realism the bread. The realism is the support the fantasy needs.
Hello Donald! 😃 I definitely need to read more by him. I have copies of the Cosmicomics (the two separate volumes) and The Baron in the Trees. I found the premise of The Cloven Viscount to be intriguing to say the least! I was not aware of his more realist beginnings. What an amazing analogy with the bread and jelly! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have a fantastic weekend!
This book is on my "To Buy" list for a few years now and you have convinced me to buy it before i buy any of my other 383 books on my list. 😅 Keep up the good work!
Haha, hope you enjoy it, my friend! 😃 I can tell you it's one of the most original novels I've ever read. Please let me know what you think about it. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and have an excellent weekend!
@@Késin_10.136 My “find” reading list approaching 100. Please add to the top of your list Fernando Pessoa’s Portuguese masterpiece “The Book of Disquiet” the Penguin masterful translation by Richard Zenith. My first edition falling apart from nights of opening anywhere to ground myself in this shitty world with a degree of equanimity. Miss Jenny
The, let's say, obsession readers have with complete stories may be connected to the likelihood of our lives being truncated before reaching the last conclusion (even though there might not have been any definitive end). This fear of incompleteness drives us to (unconsciously) desire proper closure in everything we begin. From a different angle, the passages you read reminded me of the scrolling gesture so prevalent in today's culture, but applied to a physical book rather than an electronic device, where new fragmented stories overlap previous ones in an endless loop.
Tremendous insight, Leandro! 😃 I like the notion that, since a sense of closure is often absent in our lives, we turn to books (and films, and other art forms) for it. The proverbial "sense of an ending." Regarding scrolling, yes; that's another area in which Calvino was ahead of his time. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend! Have an excellent weekend!
Brilliant touch at the end! You mentioned Invisible Cities, and I was wondering if that would not be a fitting description for the town of Comala.
Glad you enjoyed it, Francesco! 😃 What a great connection: Rulfo and Calvino. Comala is definitely an invisible town, if you ask me. Maybe Onetti's Santa María too. Modiano's Paris... Thank you once again for watching and commenting, my friend! Have an amazing weekend, and happy reading!
What a coincidence, a few weeks ago I subscribed to your channel. And I'm currently on the last hundred pages of the book. I'll save the video to watch once I'm done.
I already had a slight familiarity with Italo Calvino, but "Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" is a completely unique beast.
Wonderful, my friend! 😃 Please let me know what you think of the book once you're done. This novel really is something else. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for subscribing! Have a fantastic weekend!
I'm doing the grab the book and read it based on title, cover, maybe short blurb more and more. Like you, yes, may lead to disappointment, but when it works, can be such a pristine reading experience. 😊🙏🏽
I know, right?! 😃 It's such a refreshing approach. Some back cover descriptions are completely misleading. One of the worst experiences I have had in this context was with García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I'll share an experience with this method in a video at some point. Thank you so much for sharing your own experience, my friend!
@@JorgesCorner Oh nice, interested to hear more on that as and when. Two recent reads I picked just based on the title and vibes are The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama and Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa. Loved both. Such quick reads, gentle and beautiful vibes. 😁 Gave me more courage to try this method. The other one I'm doing is asking a willing bookworm friend to give me a book to read and I'll do it, no questions asked.
That would be nice to try too, yes! 😃 I've sometimes wanted to ask a random person at a bookstore what their favorite book is, but I guess I'm too shy!
I liked what you did at the end 😂
So glad you enjoyed it, Raheel! 😃 Calvino style, haha. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have a fantastic weekend!
Great discussion. I also liked Invisible Cities. My favourite by Calvino so far is The Complete Cosmicomics, SF almost but Calvino style.
If On A Winter's Night opened brilliantly for me. Then gradually, the book lost its way with me and I was left disappointed. Maybe some day I will appreciate it more. For now, I really enjoyed the discussion. 🙏🏽
Thank you so much, Paromita! 😃 I still need to read the Cosmicomics. I've had the books for years, now that I think about it... It's totally understandable about If on a winter's night a traveler. It took me a long time to make up my mind to read it. I had bought it even before I got my copy of Invisible Cities, which is the book I would recommend as a starting point with Calvino (based on my limited knowledge). So glad you enjoyed the video, my friend!
I got lost too...about the halfway of the book then decided to look for a guide...it seems that this presentation will help me carry on
I hope the video helped, my friend! 😃 Happy reading!
Jorge, your two cents on Calvino are more valuable than any literature course anywhere…….. Merci! I also have in my library Calvino’s remarkably disturbing “Numbers in the Dark”, masterfully translated from the Italian by Tim Parks…….both suitable shelf companions to my Borges and Márques collections. You are a remarkable young man Jorge, who gives me so much real pleasure. Miss Jenny
Thank you so much, Miss Jenny, for watching and commenting, and for your kind words! 😃 It makes me so happy to hear you enjoyed the video. Ah, Calvino, JLB, and GGM: that's a combination! Numbers in the Dark sounds intriguing. I need to experience his short stories. Have an amazing weekend, my friend, and happy reading!
@@JorgesCorner And life intervenes….. take care of yourself. Miss Jenny
Looking good 😊
Thank you so much, my friend! 😃 Have a wonderful weekend, and happy reading!
That ending is genius
Thank you so much, Daniel! 😃 So glad you enjoyed it. I was hoping it wouldn't be too frustrating, haha. Have an amazing weekend, my friend, and happy reading!
Hola jorge! How are you? Why didn't you make a video in two weeks? Please, come back soon. I miss you. Have a wonderful sunday, my friend!
No, it is not alright to not like this book! 🙂 While I was for a short time of my life a big David Mitchell fan - somewhat I lost that fandom ... I still think Black Swan Green is his best book. - - - OULIPO, my friend, OULIPO. More Queneau and Perec, please. 🙂
I read about the OULIPO connection after I did the video. 😃 More to come about this, my friend! Black Swan Green has been on my list for a while now. I've also heard good things about number9dream. Have an excellent weekend, and happy reading and film watching!
Hola jorge! How are you? Let me know if it's all ok. I miss you, my friend.
Hola, Marina! Thank you so much for your messages, my friend! 😃 I miss you too! I've been experiencing some health issues, so I'm taking it easy for a while and focusing on work and family. I hope to be back to making videos soon! Thanks again for your kind words, and have an amazing day!
@@JorgesCorner I'm sorry to hear that you've had health problems. I hope you get better soon. Have a wonderful day, my friend!
In this UA-cam era of DNFing ; reading one chapter to decide if we keep or unhaul ; that Calvino book doesn’t seem that surreal :)
André Gide coined the expression “mise en abîme”, he took the terms from heraldry to describe the type of meta fiction used here (a book about a writer who’s writing the book you’re reading).
Haha, you're absolutely right, my friend! 😃 The guy was way ahead of his time, in so many ways. I have found Gide's concept to be so useful when discussing certain types of modernist and postmodernist works. Speaking of which, I need to talk about Gide. Hopefully soon! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend, and have an amazing weekend!
it's the only novel in the history....and then it went black. Um....
😉 Thank you so much for stopping by, my friend! Have an amazing day!