If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" by Italo Calvino - Classic Literature Novel for Book Lovers | Perfect for Winter Reading & Book Club Discussions

I consider true literature to be something that has the unique characteristic that it will try to explore ideas that are new - imagined or otherwise but new - and attempt to portray them with words. If it succeeds in conveying some meaning to the reader, then the work itself succeeds. But at it's limit, in one extreme case, the reader, however gifted she/he maybe, might find it difficult to express the same ideas, of whose understanding she/he believes to have completely mastered, in words much different from that used in the book itself, or in the other extreme, find a flurry of words crowding over each other to do the same. After reading the book, I am left with ideas of both these types. Calvino's imagination and gift with words surpass anything that I could imagine about imagination and usage of words themselves.It's a radical way of writing a novel, and I never expected to be addressed myself when reading it. As other readers have mentioned here, the book starts off by declaring that it is incomplete. From there, the reader of the book (that is yourself), takes a dizzying journey, starting with perambulations within the city, in search of the rest of the story, through journeys across countries, finally ending where he (you?) started. On the way, he runs into other books (which you read, but all breaking off at some climax), other readers, conspiracies, ghost-writers ...Everyone who reads gets involved in the plot-lines developed in a novel, and some might imagine themselves to be one of the characters in the novel. Here, the protagonist is the reader - yourself - and the plot-line is an exploration of reading itself, hence it is even more compelling an involvement. The journey of the protagonist and of the characters that he reads reflect in an almost perfect way the personal journey that you embark upon in reading a novel (this novel) - the emotions, the adrenaline, the moments of irritation with distractions, the re-reads to find the exact meaning ...Each of the stories in the book is written in language that transports you to that parallel universe where the story is happening. Through them, you realize that it is possible for the crux of a story to be the introduction and the setting for the ending; the ending itself might trivialize this alternative reality into which you were so pleasingly and totally transported, and hence the story itself might do without one.This is my favourite book up until now, and possibly until I read Calvino's other works.