the complex simplicity of italo calvino's meta-narratives. the slight mocking of reader and reading process, and perhaps the condemnation of institutionalized approaches to analytical reading (despite being an analysis of itself, in itself!!)... the nostalgia of reading for reading's sake. and it makes me laugh, to find myself in that simple minded reader, perhaps feeling little in front of my own impossibility to contextualize, over-analyze... but liking to read, simply read, and to expect somewhat naively to be given the satisfaction of a tale... and yet at the same partaking in this process of analysis! does this even make sense? yet he does it so greatly, this writing business, bringing with it that primordial satisfaction of the intricate tale... the story within the story within the story ad infinitum, the desperate reader who finds no end to the paradox; the absent writer who is even more paradoxically ever-present. and there i am... creating a structure for an allegedly post-structuralist novel: (the elements are there: the allusion to the missing author, the iconic self-referentiality, the cut and paste effect...) which is at the same time so beautifully harmonized into a coherent unity that i hesitate to throw this book into the great pothole of post-structuralism. because the difference is, this book makes sense, it is a story, and fruit of incredible genius, dare i say!! oh my goodness i would make a shithouse critic. but it all makes sense in the moment i suppose.