Closing Thoughts on If on a winters night a traveler
There is a classic children’s picture book called The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg. The book is made up of a handful of haunting images with a title and a single line from a story. The idea was to encourage young readers to imagine — or write — the rest of the … Continue reading
Book 1.4 If on a winter’s night… The Male Gaze
The main character in If on a winter’s night a traveler is “You,” the reader. As I wrote before, this isn’t unlike the old Choose Your Own Adventure books where the hero was actually “You,” the person reading the book. (Some other books that do the “second-person” thing are Robbins’ Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas … Continue reading
Book 1.1 If on a winter’s night a traveler
You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. This is a blog about books, about reading them and understanding the writers who write them. I remember a line that Stephen King (who makes it into this blog’s canon by a whisker) wrote … Continue reading
Letters Republic 