Point of View

The point of view in the novel changes from second person to first person. In the numbered chapters, the tale is often told in second person, as conversations between the author, Calvino, and the reader, "you," who in the book is a male reader. This style allows the author to make the reading a highly-personal adventure, as is his point throughout the novel, that reading is personal and makes a book what it is. In the named chapters, which are snippets of novels, the story is often told from a first person viewpoint, or in some cases, again in second person. Changing this view allows the author to tailor the reading between the personal, when the reader is to feel highly involved, and the impersonal, when the reader is to be simply a bystander. This change in voice is highly successful and allows a much broader...