Book Machines (Motif)
The many machines related to reading and writing in If on a winter's night a traveler demonstrate society's discomfort with the influence of technology on literature and academia.
Society's discomfort with the way modern academia deals with literature is shown through the symbol of Lotaria's reading machine, which counts up the number of times individual words are used in a book and then sequences them by frequency. Lotaria asserts that she can tell everything she needs to about a book from the words that are used frequently and infrequently; she doesn't need to actually read the book. Lotaria and her machine together form a symbol of academics who do not actually judge books for their literary merit but make assumptions and assertions about them based purely on set-theoretical models. Calvino's negative view of this kind of literary analysis is shown by Silas Flannery's discomfort with this machine and the resultant intensification of his writer's block.
Another book machine described in If on a winter's night a traveler is the one Ermes Marana describes from his time in New York. He writes in a letter, "The reader is soldered to the chair at the wrists...subjected to the uninterrupted reading of novels and variants of novels as they are turned out by the computer. If reading attention reaches certain highs with a certain continuity, the product is viable and can be launched on the market" (128). This machine combines multiple aspects that could create fear and discomfort for a reader. First, the novels are being created by a computer. This suggests that humans could be replaced by machines, even in such fields as art and literature. Second, the subject and style of the novel is being altered based solely on its ability to keep a reader's attention. This implies that the modern publishing industry is more concerned with writing books that will be engaging and easily accessible than those of a higher intellectual caliber. Finally, the way the reader is incapacitated with shackles, earplugs, and a chin strap shows the helplessness of writers and consumers of literature to the capitalistic interests of the global publishing behemoths.
Ludmilla's Food and Decor (Symbol)
The food and items in Ludmilla's apartment are used to demonstrate aspects of her personality. In Chapter 7, the reader goes to Ludmilla's apartment and decides to snoop around. Throughout the scene, the narrator suggests meaning behind Ludmilla's possessions and style of decoration. Of the food in Ludmilla's kitchen, the narrator gathers, "It is clear that when shopping you succumb to the lure of the goods on display and don't bear in mind what is lacking at home" (143). Moving from the kitchen to the living room, the author surmises from Ludmilla's lack of pets that she is "a woman who tends not to increase responsibilities, and this can be a sign either of egoism or of concentration on other, less extrinsic, concerns" (145). Finally, focus turns to Ludmilla's books, about which the author conjectures, "Obviously you have the habit of reading several books at the same time...your mind has interior walls that allow you to partition different times in which to stop or flow" (146). These pairings of objects and analysis give the reader a roadmap of how to understand indirect characterization through symbolic objects. However, readers should be cautious that the narrator is only giving one possible interpretation of the items and decoration in Ludmilla's house, in the same way that symbols can be interpreted in many different ways.
The Publishing House (Symbol)
The publishing house is symbolic to Ludmilla, thus it has symbolic importance within the novel as a whole. Ludmilla refuses to go with the Reader to the publishing house, saying "There's a boundary line: on one side are those who make books, on the other those who read them...I take care always to remain on my side of the line. Otherwise, the unsullied pleasure of reading ends (93). This quote shows that to Ludmilla, the publishing house is not just a place where books are edited and printed; it represents books being made by a capitalistic, biased system rather than completely naturally. Ludmilla's desire for books to be produced naturally is also shown through her idolization of Silas Flannery because of his straightforward writing process and presumably simple style.
Mirrors (Symbol)
Mirrors are an important symbol in the story-within-a-story "In a network of lines that intersect." The narrator of the story is a paranoid man who is obsessed with mirrors. He loves mirrors so much that he deeply researches and collects kaleidoscopes. Over the course of the story, his paranoia and obsession lead him to create "mirrors" of things in his life in an attempt to ward off danger; he hires body doubles of himself and his mistress, buys identical cars, and eventually creates almost identical groups of criminals to carry out fake kidnappings. This mirroring, particularly of people, calls attention to an aspect of Calvino's writing in If on a winter's night a traveler. Similar to the narrator of the story-within-a-story hiring body doubles of his mistress, Calvino creates many female characters who have striking similarities to one another. Furthermore, at the end of "In a network of lines that intersect," the narrator sees his mistress and his wife reflected over and over in a mirror-covered room and can't tell whose body parts are whose. In parallel, Calvino's female characters almost blend together into a single character. Some scholars critique Calvino's lack of strong, individual female characters, while others believe he creates these female characters to parody male gaze.
Uniforms (Symbol)
Uniforms are mentioned throughout If on a winter's night a traveler, but they are of most importance in Chapter 9. The reader has gone to Ataguitania and meets a woman he believes to be Lotaria in disguise. She is actually in a number of disguises—uniforms worn directly on top of one another. The reader strips her of these one-by-one: "With a frantic hand you unbutton the white smock of Sheila the programmer and you discover the police uniform of Alfonsina; you rip Alfonsina's gold buttons away and you find Corinna's anorak; you pull the zipper of Corinna and you see the chevrons of Ingrid" (218). These stacked uniforms can be read pessimistically as a symbol of deception or optimistically as a symbol of a single person's identity being complex and multi-faceted.
The scene continues with the female character tearing off the final piece of clothing to reveal her naked breasts and declaring, "The body is a uniform!...The body signifies! Communicates! Shouts! Protests! Subverts!" (219.) Aspects of one's body such as sex and race can be seen as a mandatory uniform and play a role in one's life experience. Furthermore, the way one chooses to display and adorn one's body, one's chosen uniform, holds information about one's identity.
