Calvino in Postmodern Literature

Anthony Read

‘If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller’ has been

described as a postmodern text. What does the term

postmodernism mean when applied to a literary

work? What reasons does the novel suggest for its

unorthodox narrative practices?

For a movement that has been in existence for quite some time, it is incredible how no-one has created a

universal definition for postmodernism. By studying Italo Calvino’s novel If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller with

an eye for postmodern techniques, we might come closer to a idea of what literary postmodernism might be.

But before we can do that, we must look at postmodernism in general and in other fields.

James Ley perhaps best summed it up in one of his lectures on Calvino: “incredulity towards metanarratives.”

This means a systematic breaking down and voiding of metanarratives (narratives that have a higher meaning

beyond their initial being). This is apparent in many facets of life and art. For example, Andy Warhol mass

produced his simplistic ‘pop-art’ to redefine what an artist was. In postmodernism, artists are no longer the

gods of their domains. Indeed, the ‘author-gods’ of modernism are replaced with the belief that no one true

meaning for anything exists: it is simply up to the individual and the collective to impose meaning.

Calvino has written a guidebook on how postmodernism works with Traveller. He incorporates so many

postmodern techniques that it would be impossible to describe them all. Mary Klages lists many modernist

techniques in her essay on postmodernism, and describes how they can be all used in a postmodern context as

well. She says modernism upholds the idea that “art can do what other human institutions fail to do”, whereas

postmodernism “celebrates the idea of fragmentation and incoherence” (Klages 2007). She sums it up thus:

“Let’s not pretend that art can make meaning then, let’s just play with nonsense.”

One - “An emphasis on HOW seeing takes place,

rather than on WHAT is perceived.” (Klages)

Calvino takes this idea and puts a literary spin on it, replacing ‘seeing / perceiving’ with ‘writing’. It is a “novel

about novels, a book about the reading and writing of books” (De Lauretis 1988, pp. 135). There are many

passages scattered throughout the novel which go into detail about the production of books. The sub-story

contained within the numbered chapters is an old-fashioned mystery about two sides in a literature war: those

for the purity of written novels, and those for the counterfeiting and mixing-up of literature. One chapter even

deals with an entire country caught up in the idea of counterfeiting: “you find yourself prisoner of a system in

which every aspect of life is a counterfeit, a fake” (Calvino 1998, pp. 215). Even the sex scene is written in

language terms: “Your body is now being subjected to a systematic reading” (Calvino, pp. 155). When not
explicitly addressing writing, Calvino still uses examples of reality (in a reading context) to address the system

of literature production. Thus every aspect of the novel relates to reading and writing in some way.

Two – “Movement away from omniscient third-

person narrators and fixed narrative points of

view.”

One of the most obvious techniques Calvino uses is to include us, the Reader (with a capital R) into the novel.

He does this by using a second-person narrative technique, addressing us as ‘you’. The first chapter is basically

what one would do when buying and beginning to read a novel. “It’s not that you expect anything from this

particular book”; “you start leafing through the book”; “you are at your desk” (Calvino, pp. 6-7). This whole

chapter, and many after, address us as part of the inner workings of the novel, essentially placing us inside the

story. But this isn’t just limited to the numbered chapters. The first ‘story’ has a first-person narrator: “I am the

man who comes and goes…” (pp. 11), as do most of the even chapters. Calvino even talks in a double second-

person perspective: “So the time has come to address you in the second-person plural.” Nowhere in the book is

there a third-person perspective. This allows the reader to enter into the action, to make us feel as though we

are part of the unfolding narrative. It also denies the chance for a narrator to tell us what lies ahead, or what

other characters may be thinking. The Other Reader demonstrates this when talking on the phone to the

Reader: “Perhaps Ludmilla has covered the receiver with her hand…be careful” (pp. 46).

Three – “A blurring of distinctions between genres.”

Traveller exhibits a vast array of genres. This is because of the nature of the story told in the numbered

chapters. Every time the Reader comes to continuing the novel he previously started, he ends up beginning a

whole new novel. This means Calvino can play with various styles and conventions while maintaining a direct

story outside of these novellas. The Reader’s story is a mixture of many genres, including romance, mystery,
action and crime. The story chapters range from a spy mystery (‘If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller) to a Romeo

and Juliet style mystery (‘Outside the Town of Malbork’), and also includes a strangely incestuous Japanese love

story (‘On the Carpet of Leaves Illuminated by the Moon’). This idea of mixing genres fits into postmodernism

well. Klages mentions the idea of “celebrating pastiche and bricolage”, and the novel clearly favours

“fragmentation and discontinuity, especially in narrative structures”.

Four – “Fragmented forms, discontinuous

narratives, random-seeming collages.”

Continuing on from Klages’ last point, the abundance of different genres seen in Traveller make for a

fragmented reading experience. The Reader is always interrupted in the middle of one of the novels he is

reading, creating a discontinuous flow. An example is when the Reader opens the book he thinks will be the

continuation of the first, and “you realise the novel you are holding has nothing to do with the one you were

reading yesterday” (Calvino, pp. 33). This is repeated all throughout the novel, and the only seemingly

straightforward storyline is what the Reader experiences. Yet even his journey is a strange one, which never

seems to stay still, shifting from one genre and point of view to another. The most glaring example of these

“random-seeming” collages comes from the very last chapter. When the Reader asks another reader whether

they have any of the books he has begun, he reads them aloud in a sentence. They actually could be the

opening paragraph of a novel, and he remarks, “I could swear I’ve read it…” (pp. 258). All the titles of these

random-seeming novels come together into one legitimate paragraph. This suggests an infinite continuation of

the novel, or is it just pure coincidence? Being postmodern, Calvino doesn’t give us an answer.

Five – “A tendency towards reflexivity and self-

consciousness.”
The blurb on the back of Traveller says, “You are constantly assailed by the notion that Calvino is writing down

what you have already known”. This form of reflexivity is apparent right throughout the novel. On some

occasions, it is obvious that Calvino is drawing attention to the novel’s status as a novel, with passages like this:

“You noticed in a newspaper that If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller…by Italo Calvino, which hadn’t been

published for several years” (Calvino, pp. 4). At other times, it is slightly more subtle. The very last chapter of

the book consists of the Reader in bed with Ludmilla, where he says, “Hold on, I’ve almost finished reading

Traveller.” This is a strange moment. Does Calvino mean us, as in we have finished the novel? Has the Reader

tracked down the rest of the first novel he never finished? Or is it the mysterious novel composed of the book

titles? This self-consciousness about the story being a story is a major part of the Calvino experience, and the

postmodern condition as well.

Six –“Minimalist designs…spontaneity and discovery

in creation.”

If looking at Traveller as a whole, it would appear as if Calvino is ignoring this point. As a complete entity, this

novel is epic and sprawling, filled with details and a large narrative scope (through separate characters, stories

and genres). While Calvino can be pictured writing whatever came to his mind, the storylines that intersect and

the final chapters signify that a lot of thought went into the creation of the novel. The fact that he used all the

chapter names to write a full paragraph shows that his thought processes are more detailed than spontaneous.

To fulfil this postmodern idea, we need to think in a postmodern fashion, in a ‘minimalist fashion’. If we took

each seperate ‘story’ by itself, it would reveal a very straightforward and minimalist idea, with simple stories

and characters. Perhaps the brightest example of this ‘discovery in creation’ is the journey of the Reader. While

the Reader goes through many trials in search of the one elusive novel he wants to finish, he discovers a whole

new world of conspiracies and literature spies. We can imagine Calvino sitting at his writing desk, coming up

with seemingly random plot twists to make the Reader ‘create’ his own story around the stories he is reading.
 Seven – “A rejection of distinctions between high

and low art forms.”

The story encased within the numbered chapters addresses this postmodern idea directly. The idea is that of a

conflict between those who worship the original idea of a novel, and those who feel they should infiltrate and

cause chaos within the literature world. As in any war, neither side is morally ‘better’ than the other. This

conflict signifies the difference between high (pure) and low (counterfeit) literature, but fails to say which side

has the upper hand, or is more ‘right’. It simply cannot be put into black and white terms, such as good and

evil. Another example is the story between the two writers watching each other, one being “productive” and

the other “tortured”. Neither writer is held in more esteem over the other: the productive one envies the

tortured, thinking his own work is “superficial”; the tortured writer envies the productive one, and his efficiency

in what will “surely be a best seller” (Calvino, pp. 173-174). The ultimate rejection of distinctions is made when

conclusions are thought of: the woman gets two copies of exactly the same novel from each writer; she returns

the novels, but to the wrong authors, and they discover their “personal veins”; or even a wind mixes up the

novels and creates a perfect work. This says that neither high nor low art forms are perfect in themselves, but a

combination of the two might find that elusive middle ground.

All these points show how If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller is a glaringly postmodern text. It showcases the

process of writing, rather than the words themselves: has a second-person Reader, that could well be Us

entered into the text; combines disparate genres into cohesive narratives; leaves narrative strands open and

never concludes them; and always seems to be conscious of the fact that we are reading a novel, and that

metanarratives should, and do not, exist. All these ideas are similar across the range of postmodern art forms,

from music to art to literature. Calvino has written a manifesto of what postmodern literature should be with

Traveller, and as Readers (with a capital R) we should be than KFUL.

REFERENCE LIST

CALVINO I, 1998, IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELLER, RANDOM HOUSE, LONDON.

DE LAURETIS T, 1988, ‘READING THE (POST)MODERN TEXT: IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELLER’, CALVINO REVISITED.

KLAGES M, 2007, POSTMODERNISM, HTTP://WWW.COLORADO.EDU/ENGLISH/COURSES/ENGL2012KLAGES/POMO.HTML,

VIEWED 3/6/08.
Calvino in Postmodern Literature

Anthony Read