“Don’t be amazed if you see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only in this way that reading proves fruitful for me. If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end, moving away from the book until I have lost sight of it. The stimulus of reading is indispensable to me, and of meaty reading, even if, of every book, I manage to read no more than a few pages. But those few pages already enclose for me whole universes, which I can never exhaust.”
from page 254, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino
3:41 pm
I’m an avid reader but a slow one, and this is EXACTLY why! I thought I was easily distracted or something, but this makes it wonderful! Thanks for posting it!
3:49 pm
One of my favorite books of all time. You’re making me want to pick up my dog-eared copy and read it again.
8:57 pm
Thank you for your wonderful blog. Love this post.
9:23 pm
i love that book. i’ve read it more than once. i think i’ll keep reading it for the rest of my life. thank you.
11:01 pm
How is it possible that every time I visit your website, I discover the very post that I need at that given moment? You continually give me such thought-provoking intellectual treats… yum. (And thanks to Calvino too, of course.)
1:51 am
Oy, that’s the very reason it took me 3 tries to get through the introduction to Everything is God by Jay Michaelson. Great quote. Thanx.
1:21 am
I know this is off subject but there is an article in this week’s NY Times Magazine about Arvo Part and I know that you have mentioned his work. You may have already seen this but if not here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17part-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
8:39 am
LOVE this book! Honestly I wish I read like this, but most of the time I’m in such a hurry to get through to the end that I don’t.
11:04 am
It is why children do that very often. Now, I understand.
Children are wonderful teacher,
We have to guide them, but also to learn from them
2:54 pm
Wow; even just that short paragraph captured me. I immediately looked up “If on a Winters Night a Traveler” on Amazon, read a review, and wanted that book: NOW. As in, I cannot wait one more minute or one more second give me that book now or I’ll pull it from your hands and I don’t care if I have to knock you unconscious to get it but I want it NOW. I’ve never felt that in my entire life. THINK IT MEANS SOMETHING?? I’ve got to get that book… :)
1:00 am
I was reading your post and thinking to myself ”That’s exactly how it was while I was reading If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler’. And whattaya know. It’s from the book.
