The novel is addressed to you, the Reader, who has just bought Italo Calvino's latest book. After a few pages, you find the printing has gone wrong and the story repeats, so you go to the bookshop and get a replacement, which turns out to be something else. In searching for the true text, you meet Ludmilla, a reader who prefers books for their own sake, and enter a network of translators, publishers, and apocryphal authors. Between these chapters, Calvino includes ten openings of different novels, each in a distinct genre, all cut short by one accident or another.
It is for readers who enjoy literary games and want a book about the pleasure of reading itself. Short chapters make it easy to enjoy in pieces.
Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1999
- Publisher
- Companhia das Letras
- ISBN
- 9788571649040
- Language
- PT
