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Looks down in the gathering shadow
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If on a winter’s night a traveler, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Act of Reading
Academia and Publishing
Censorship and Government Oppression
Love, Lust, and Anxiety
Summary
Analysis
You want to continue reading, but this is where the photocopied pages end. You find Mr. Cavedagna and ask to see the rest of Looks down in the gathering shadow, but he isn’t sure where it is. He agrees, though, to send you the rest of his Ermes Marana files from the archives. Marana, writing from a remote village in South America, has sent Cavedagna several letters about various publishing matters. In one, he offers Cavedagna the option of publishing a new, highly anticipated novel called In a network of lines that enlace by the Irish writer Silas Flannery.
Calvino took inspiration from the writers of South America, most notably Jorge Borges, whose surreal short stories resemble the story fragments that this novel contains. The reference to South America is a tribute to these writers as well as a reference to how Calvino is himself “translating” their work, not just by literally translating it from Spanish to Italian but also by mixing his inspirations together and applying his own style to them.
Themes
More letters from Ermes Marana come from around the world and describe his work on translating Silas Flannery’s In a network of lines that enlace. These letters seem to break the flow of time, with some letters referring to events that happened after they were supposedly written. Marana blames delays in his translation on the fact that the author Flannery is himself having a spiritual crisis that has held up his writing.
Even the “real world” that the narrator’s audience lives in contains elements of fantasy, from the made-up country of Cimmeria to Marana’s letters that seem to break the flow of time. The novel thus emphasizes that it is difficult to figure out the truth not just in fiction, but also in the real world in which the novel’s readers exist.
Themes
Ermes Marana’s letters reveal that he gets caught up in webs of conspiracies around the world, at one point moving to Arabia to make translations for a fiction-loving Sultana (wife of a sultan). The Sultan is afraid the Sultana will launch a conspiracy against him whenever she finishes reading, and so, inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights, Marana gets the idea to translate novels but always stop at the most suspenseful moment in order to keep the Sultana occupied.
1001 Arabian Nights is a massive collection of Middle Eastern folktales linked by a frame story. In the frame story, the ruler of the land has condemned the woman Scheherazade to death, but she manages to stay alive by entertaining him with stories, leaving the ruler in too much suspense to kill her. Arabian Nights is a clear inspiration for If on a winter’s night a traveler, which also features a frame story about a man in constant suspense by the stories he hears.
Themes
You continue to read Ermes Marana’s letters and see more mysterious female figures like the Sultana, often with some connection to Silas Flannery. Also like the Sultana, most of these women are readers, making you think of Ludmilla.
Both the Sultana and Ludmilla resemble Scheherazade from Arabian Nights with their mastery of stories, with the key difference being that they read them while Scheherazade tells them. This chapter explores how reading, writing, and translation are all connected activities.
Themes
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Ermes Marana has founded an organization that breaks into two sects, the “enlightened” followers of the Archangel of Light and the “nihilistic” followers of the Archon of Shadow. The two factions fight, and each wants to be the first to get its hands on Silas Flannery’s next novel, which each believes will reveal important ideas to the world. You get so involved in this conflict that you want to find Marana yourself to ask which faction has the right idea. You also want to read In a network of lines that enlace, which is a translation of either a real or faked Flannery novel that Marana sent to Mr. Cavedagna.
The factions that Marana founds resemble the shadowy organizations that seem to be lurking in the backgrounds of many of the frame story’s embedded narratives. The narrator gets just as involved in these real-world conflicts (which might not be “real,” given Marana’s reputation as a counterfeiter), showing once again how the truth can be nebulous. The “lines that enlace” in the title of the upcoming story could refer to the novel’s many conspiracies, which all offer different versions of the truth.
Themes
You go to meet Ludmilla at a café. While you’re waiting for her to arrive, you start reading In a network of lines that enlace.
Once again, Ludmilla is absent, and so the Reader is forced to go ahead without her, reflecting how tenuous connections between people can be.
Themes
