Second paragraph of Chapter Three (which is not the third chapter):
| Il romanzo che stai leggendo vorrebbe presentarti un mondo corposo, denso, minuzioso. Immerso nella lettura, muovi macchinalmente il tagliacarte nello spessore del volume: a leggere non sei ancora alla fine del primo capitolo, ma a tagliare sei già molto avanti. Ed ecco che, nel momento in cui la tua attenzione è più sospesa, volti il foglio a metà d’una frase decisiva e ti trovi davanti due pagine bianche. | The novel you are reading wants to present to you a corporeal world, thick, detailed. Immersed in your reading, you move the paper knife mechanically in the depth of the volume: your reading has not yet reached the end of the first chapter, but your cutting has already gone far ahead. And there, at the moment when your attention is gripped by the suspense, in the middle of a decisive sentence, you turn the page and find yourself facing two blank sheets. |
I had never attempted this previously, but it was one of the books I liberated from Ireland during the summer. It’s a surreal narrative where the sequentially numbered chapters, told in the second person, tell the story of investigating a fictional country and language which have disappeared, interspersed with the opening passages of a dozen fictional novels that tie into the narrative. I think it required more concentration and attention than I was able to give it during my commute and other travels, but at least it was fairly short. You can get If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, by Italo Calvino here.
This was my top unread sf book; next on that pile is Red Planet, by Robert A. Heinlein.
