Choose Your Own Adventure. Or not.

First and foremost, I would like to revoke my “craziest book I ever read” I so unhesitatingly murmured in class and replace it with this one (that is, until I wobble over House of Leaves). I just finished reading Leaning from the steep slope, but I must admit that my bafflement started long before that. Prior to starting the novel, I was inquisitive of the translator’s note: “In Chapter Eight the passage from Crime and Punishment is quoted in the beloved translation of Constance Garnett.” As an English major, one cannot take anything at face value, right? Thus, I decided to probe the implications of Crime and Punishment in light of If on a winter’s night traveler. Would this novel reflect similarities in structure and themes? I began to wonder if I would see strings of nihilism, utilitarianism, and rationalism buried beneath Italo Calvino’s plot. In order to completely answer questions of what’s wrong here and why does it matter, I then began the novel.

The first word in chapter one is you. Calvino does not waste any time establishing a language of possession through this second-person narrative. Similar to Dostoyevsky’s duality of his third-person omniscient between Raskolnikov and other characters, Calvino’s numbered chapters are split between the thinking of you and the speaking of I. As chapter one trudged forward, I began to rely on Calvino/the narrator’s manipulation of direction for the reader. Just as Professor Sample’s The Technology of Reading recitation suggested about the Choose Your Own Adventure series, this novel reveals differences between significant or trivial decisions by selecting the moral choice for you. While the narrator allows you to chew on the more trivial options (e.g. his relationship with Ludmilla), he makes the decision that he feels best navigates through the story. Just as Lauren’s post questioned, my trust in the narrator was skim, too. Lauren’s discomfort with the several fictional authors was a concern I carried, as it issued lopsidedness in power for the reader. I felt too inferior to make decisions. I would not necessarily call this direction stifling, but I first felt uneasy being told what to observe and analyze. After reading the book-titled chapter, followed by chapter two, I began to realize that the numbered chapters did all the thinking for me. I was dumbfounded to then read Ludmilla applaud and justify my concern:

 “I prefer novels,” she adds, “that bring me immediately into a world where everything is precise, concrete, specific. I feel a special satisfaction in knowing that things are made in that certain fashion and not otherwise, even the most commonplace things that in real life seem indifferent to me” (30).

Ludmilla’s appreciation of exactness and the issue of manipulation become cyclical with my immediate reaction to themes in Crime and Punishment. Utilitarianism can be seen especially as it reflects the overall good of the society/novel (in this case the reader). Calvino employs the pronoun you in the numbered chapters to enforce a communal understanding of each previous chapter. As we also see in the bookstore, the clerk has several copies of the Bazakbal book (an indication that this is a common problem and a solution that benefits all) and responds to the narrator’s defective Calvino’s book with, “Ah, you, too?” (27). The use of pronouns, dialogue, and ambience of setting all work to achieve the greater good for the most amount of people.