I see a lot of hate online for this one. I just finished it and loved it. What did Yea Forums think?

You should
a) definitely read invisible cities
b) ignore the anons in this thread who cannot appreciate pleasurable writing for its own sake. Cities is just as much an exercise in form/collected excerpts as If on a Winter's.... Should you want a full novelly novel then get The Baron in the Trees or something.

I think when you take away the context, the short stories don't hold up as much on their own.

The overarching narrative does take a while to get good (pretty much halfway through once it starts getting ridiculous).

I don't want to be arrogant and say it was too confusing for them, but the critics seem to really hate being directly spoken to by the narrator. I've seen stupid posts saying they didn't like being told what to feel because they thought the book was handholding them. But that just sounds like someone trying really hard to sound smart while missing the point entirely

The non-existant knight! Or smth like that, that was a fucking good read.

>I see a lot of hate online for this one
I'm surprised Yea Forums doesn't hate it, actually. It often has an in-jokey 'us crazy readers and our books' vibe that could easily be labelled reddit

my girlfriend read the first page and called it pretentious and didn't get past that. I get what she means, but that's probably similar most of the people online hating on it.

>not worth reading
Yea Forums has really gone down the drain. The book is fantastic, and is an exceptionally comfy read

it's more silly than pretentious, not a terrible read tho

>I get what she means
"No!"

That kind of knee-jerk accusation of pretension is pure anti-intellectual, anti-art bullshit. All it means is 'it looked like it was aspiring to be intelligent'.

Of course it's possible that the work really is pretentious, i.e. that it's not as smart as its author thinks. But unless it's as painfully obvious as
there's no way you can judge that from the first page.

>You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade.
That kind of self-important language is off-putting to people unfamiliar with his style and very easily comes off as pretentious and conceited.

>very easily comes off as pretentious
What's it pretending to be?

How is it pretentious? I don’t think you know the meaning of the word

It says some interesting stuff about aesthetics, and some of the passages are downright trippy. It’s probably one of the most intriguing novels I’ve ever read.

first off, I enjoyed the book. I don't think pretentious is a valid criticism of art. But when a book starts off by assuming that you're already super into it without having offered you anything to be into, that's how you come off as pretentious to the average reader. Language that suggests the novel has a predetermined worth - even before you've started reading it - and is so aware of its worth that it's written into the language of the first sentence, is the definition of pretentious.

I thought we all loved Calvino
Its great, Calvino at its best. Very short, brilliant and interesting stories in a Pynchon-like tale of conspiracies.
Also, as a lot of anons have said, extremely comfy. The very beguinning when he says to relax, take off your shoes and immerse yourself in the novel just takes you into a dreamlike state.

>Language that suggests the novel has a predetermined worth - even before you've started reading it - and is so aware of its worth that it's written into the language of the first sentence, is the definition of pretentious

No.

>>>/a dictionary/

>adjective: pretentious

>attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

>the opening line assumes I give a shit about the book
>I don't, therefore the book comes off as pretentious
it's that easy

Ah, I see what you're getting at. I was going to say someone clearly can't judge its merit from the first sentence, but 'importance' is a neatly subjective quality- if your girlfriend didn't think the book important, then I can see how she could think its (modest) claim to importance was pretentious.

You win, user.

> When exactly did you start to assume that I wanted to read the book that I'm reading?

Attached: aiaiai.png (534x466, 194K)

There is no claim to importance, easily convinced poster. The sentence is literally a joke and the girl in question was just too ADD to read more than a sentence and begin to realise it.

The opening doesn’t assume you give a shit about it. The whole point is that you, “The Reader”, are actually the protagonist of the book. “If on a winters night a traveler” isn’t even a real narrative—it’s the book “The Reader” is reading within the novel. And, in fact, you eventually discover that “The Reader” wasn’t even reading “If on a winters night a traveler” but another book. The opening is essentially ironic.

I shouldn’t even have to explain this considering you’ve read the book.

>I shouldn’t even have to explain this considering you’ve read the book.
yea and I liked it. I'm guessing most people who leave negative reviews on amazon or /r/books or whatever never got past the first chapter, maybe even the first few sentences.

Yep, good post. I like how it's written like a kids' tale, in simple language, but every now and then the prose would suddenly become more lyrical, more expressive, for a couple of pages each time. Very good book.

Where can I download "The Path to the Nest of Spiders"? I can't find it anywhere on the internet.

>reading a book about reading a book about reading a book about
please explain why you faggots love this shit??

It's kind of funny how everyone the reader encounters is some nut who has a wild interpretation on the power of reading and books, culminating in those pretentious douchebags in the scene in the library... Where the reader gets fed up and says "I just want too be entertained for a bit".

It made me sort of happy to think the author wasn't trying to be up his own ass about books and just wanted me to have a fun read