Modern Language Studies

Parody in the Postmodernist Novel: "Se unanotte d'inverno un viaggiatore"

Author(s): Marie-Anne Visoi
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 1997), pp. 159-173
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3195399
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 Parody in the Postmodernist Novel:
Se unanotted'invernoun viaggiatore
MARIE-ANNE VISOI

In a post-modernist text such as Italo Calvino's Se una notte d'invernoun

viaggiatore,most critics agree that the reader's activity is intensified by the
use of metafictional techniques which destabilize the text.
By stepping outside the conventional narrative frames, the narrative
voice abuses the reader's confidence in traditional narrative authority and
manipulates him/her to adopt a new perspective on reading. Linda
Hutcheon called Calvino's novel a "complex parodic text" (1985, 89),
where parody functions at different levels. It is, first of all, a parody of lit-
erary conventions. The defamiliarization of traditional narrative tech-
niques, or the role of the narrative voice in guiding the reader in the
fictional world become here targets of parody. On another level, the pa-
rodic image of the Reader as hero of his own reading subverts the conven-
tional author-reader relationship and adds a new dimension to the act of
reading: the reader's identity. There is, of course, an explicit parody of
popular literature, of the type that succeeds to draw the reader into the
realm of phantasy by concealing fictional techniques. Finally, we must
mention self-parody, as a way of pointing out how Cavino's text deals
with the problem of reference.
My analysis of parody in Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatorewill focus
on those aspects closely related to reader-text relationship and it aims to
reveal how parody contributes to an increased awareness of the reading
experience. Therefore, I will look first at the text as a parody of narrative
conventions. Then, I will concentrate on the comic nature of parody by
comparing the male Reader as the hero of Calvino's novel with Allan Fe-
lix, the hero of the movie "Play It Again, Sam" directed by Herbert Ross.
Moder LanguageStudies 27.3, 4 ?Northeast Modern LanguageAssociation
160 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

My discussion on parody will conclude with self-parody and its role in

challenging the reader's expectations.
In "The Violation of the Text: Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore,"
JoAnn Cannon refers to the double reality that confronts the reader of
Calvino's text and the constant play of similarity and difference: "It is a
text which deplores the inadequacy of literary language at the same time
that it celebrates literature's power; a text that might be said to represent
the final stages of the literature of exhaustion as well as the initial stages of
a new departure in fiction" (1981, 97). We have seen how the laying bare
of the narrative conventions is accompanied in this novel by a return to the
fictional techniques: there is no attempt to create the illusion of fiction but,
at the same time, the narrative voice basks in its control of the Reader in
the text. Access to the consciousness of characters is a primary narrative
convention that is consistently used in the text along, however, with the
overt acknowledgement that the characters are in the process of being de-
veloped by the Reader himself! Ludmilla "takes shape" in the bookstore,
then her portrait is gradually completed by "the book". What the reader
must be prepared to admit right away is the absence of an authorial voice.
The narrator is omniscient but delights in destroying the illusion of fiction
by exposing the functional parts of the narrative. The model parodied here
is the linear narrative where the omniscient narrator acts as a guide of the
reader and where fictional devices are concealed in order to make fiction
look "true to life". The Reader's search for the whole book, for linearity in
reading, constantly draws attention to this model.
The narrative voice presents the Reader as "real", living in a "real"
world. All his thoughts and actions are believable in spite of the lack of
empirical detail. It is accepted knowledge that one can start reading a book
in the bus or in the car, waiting for the traffic light. The process of reading
is described in sequences based on shared knowledge about conventional
behaviour in such a way that it concides with our own reading. This is
where the parody starts: the Reader is forced into a certain shape and he is
not able to conform. At the beginning of the novel, the Reader finds him-
self in the bus and he tries to take the book out of its package. As his ges-
tures are perceived from a critical distance, his clumsiness is promptly
registered by the narrator's ridiculizing voice and he is scolded in a friend-
ly manner:
Ora sei in autobus, in piedi, tra la gente, appeso per un braccio a una
maniglia, e cominci a svolgere il pacchetto con la mano libera, con
gesti un po' da scimmia, una scimmia che vuole sbucciare una ba-
nana e nello stesso tempo tenersi aggrappata al ramo. Guardo che
stai dando gomitale ai vicini; chiedi scusa, almeno (8).
MARIE-ANNE
VISOI 161

Now you are on the bus, standing in the crowd, hanging from a
strap by your arm, and you begin undoing the package with your
free hand, making movements something like a monkey, a monkey
who wants to peel a banana and at the same time cling to the bough.
Watch out, you're elbowing your neighbors; apologize, at least (7).
Narratorial guidance is thus pushed aside for a humourously ironic
evaluation of the Reader's way of reading and, implicitly, our own. The
narrator does not make any effort to alleviate the suspicion that the novel's
"incipits" inserted in the narration of the frame story are of dubious au-
thorship. Quite the opposite. As reading progresses, we understand that,
perhaps, the novels are authorless, and we start becoming aware of the
game. The warning of the author's absence comes with Ludmilla's openly
expressed desire to read a novel that has "come forza motrice solo la
voglia di raccontare, d'accumulare storie su storie, senza pretendere d'im-
porti una visione del mondo, ma solo di farti assistere alla propria crescita,
come una pianta, un aggrovigliarsi come di rami e di foglie..."(106). Lud-
milla's fear of crossing the boundary between her own world, that of the
readers, and the world of the authors, those who produce books, is ex-
plained by her wish to keep the pleasure of reading intact. In contrast, Lo-
taria's reading appears as a negative example, showing what can happen
when theorizing and critical commentary violate the text and try to make
its meaning adapt to their interpretive practices. The notion of the author
as the privileged transmitter of meaning becomes thus eroded and in-
stead, we have a plural figure of the author:
La figura dell'autore e diventata plurima e si sposta sempre in grup-
po, perche nessuno puo essere delegato a rappresentare nessuno:
quatro ex carcerati di cui uno evaso, tre ex ricoverati con l'infer-
miere e manoscritto dell'infermiere. Oppure sono delle coppie, non
necessariamente ma tendenzialmente marito e moglie, come se la
vita in coppia non avesse miglior conforto che la produzione di
manoscritti (110).
The figure of the author has become plural and moves away in a
group, because nobody can be delegated to represent anybody: four
ex-convicts of whom one is an escapee, three former patients with
their male nurse and the male nurse's manuscript. Or else there are
pairs, not necessarily but tendentially husband and wife, as if the
shared life of a couple had no greater consolation than the produc-
tion of manuscripts (96).
In the scene taking place at the publishing house, Cavedagna's wel-
coming attitude at the Reader's introduction ("io sono un lettore, solo un
lettore, non un autore") is rendered ironic by his comment about the de-
162 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

creasing number of readers: "- Ah si? Bravo, bravo, sono proprio conten-
to!-E l'occhiata che ti rivolge e davvero di simpatia e di gratitudine.-Mi
fa piacere. Di lettori davvero, io ne incontro sempre meno..." (111).
The story of "the manuscript that cannot be found," an old narrative
device, is inserted playfully, not only to draw our attention to the Reader's
naivety, but also, to subvert textual authority: "Cosi, facendoti largo tra gli
altri visitatori, hai sentito il dottor Cavedagna ricominciare piu volte il dis-
corso del manoscritto che non si trova, rivolgendosi ogni volta a persone
diverse, te compreso, ogni volta interrotto prima di rendersi conto
dell'equivoco, da visitatori, o da altri redattori e impiegati" (109).
This is how, step by step, the narrative voice annihilates authorial pow-
er. Ermes Marana, the figure of the devious translator who, supposedly,
translates a French text and passes it as Cimmerian, Polish or Cimbrian
novels is introduced to shatter any illusion of authorship. The contents of
Ermes Marana's letter which is insistently shown by Cavedagna destroys
its own testimonial function by making us reflect on the concept of the au-
thor:

Che importa il nome dell'autore in copertina? Trasportiamoci col

pensiero di qui a tremila anni. Chissa quali libri della nostra epoca
si saranno salvati, e di chissa quali autori si ricordera ancora il
nome. Ci saranno libri che resteranno famosi ma che saranno con-
siderati opere anonime come per noi l'epopea di Ghilgamesh; ci sa-
ranno autori di cui sara sempre famoso il nome ma di cui non
restera nessuna opera, come e successo a Socrate; o forse tutti i libri
superstiti saranno attribuiti a un unico autore misterioso, come
Omero. (116)

What does the name of an author on the jacket matter? Let us movefor-
ward in thought to three thousand years from now. Who knows which
booksfrom our periodwill be saved, and who knows which authors'names
will be remembered?Some bookswill remainfamousbut will be considered
anonymous works, as for us the epic of Gilgamesh;other authors' names
will still be well-known, but none of their works will survive, as was the
case with Socrates;or perhapsall the surviving bookswill be attributedto
a single, mysteriousauthor, like Homer. (101)

What we have here is a perfect example of how the novel deconstructs

its own purported reality. By making use of traditional narrative devices,
the text exposes the fragility of its own existence. Let us not forget that Er-
mes Marana is a translator, an occupation which becomes of importance
to the theorizing that goes on in the novel. Wiley Feinstein believes that the
idea of translation is used "to point to another aspect of the limits of texts"
MARIE-ANNE
VISOI 163

(Ricci 1989, 149) and reveals the unbridgeable gap between fiction and re-
ality. In other words, there is no use pretending in order to create fiction,
for narrative conventions more or less fail at translating reality.
The playfulness of the narrative voice becomes more obvious in chap-
ter six. Cavedagna hands the Reader a whole file entitled "Marana, Er-
mes" whose documents confirm the diabolical designs of the translator.
The Reader discovers that Marana is the founder of an organization, the
"Apocryphal Power" which has two opposing groups: "una setta d'illu-
minati seguaci dell'Arcangelo della Luce e una setta di nichilisti seguaci
dell'Arconte dell'Ombra" (150). With the two groups in search of Silas
Flannery's unpublished manuscript, the plot resembles the narrative
structure of an adventure story. But what is it that has changed? The dif-
ference lies, as one critic observed, in the "skillful deconstruction of the bi-
nary opposition between truth and falsehood" (Ricci 1989, 150). Unlike us,
the Reader is caught again in the fictional web and desires continuity. For
us though, the text points clearly to its own demystification.
Silas Flannery's diary brings up another issue: the controversial rela-
tionship between reader and author. Flannery's reflections appear danger-
ously close to the Barthesian subversion of authority. The writing block
that the writer suffers from has as its source the dissatisfaction with the
ability to communicate with his readers. Flannery's desire to write a novel
which is read simultaneously by his reader calls attention to the text's re-
flexivity. The mirroring effect of the novel makes us aware of our own
reading:
Alle volte mi prende un desiderio assurdo:che la frase che sto per
scrivere sia quella che la donna sta leggendo nello stesso momento.
L'idea mi suggestiona talmente che mi convinco che e vero: scrivo
la frase in fretta, mi alzo, vado alla finestra, punto il cannocchiale
per controllare l'effetto della mia frase nel suo sguardo, nella piega
delle sue labbra, nella sigaretta che accende, negli spostamenti del
suo corpo sulla sedia a sdraio, nelle gambe che s'accavallano o si
distendono. (198)
At times I am gripped by an absurddesire:that the sentence I am about to
write be the one the woman is readingat the same moment. The idea mes-
merizes me so much that I convince myself it is true: I write the sentence
hastily, get up, go to the window, train my spyglass to checkthe effect of
my sentence in her gaze, in the curl of her lips, in the cigaretteshe lights,
in the shifts of her body in the deckchair, in her legs, which she crosses or
extends. (170)
In a scene where farcical buffoonery prevails, Flannery's failed attempt
to seduce Ludmilla parodies the figure of the author who wants to com-
164 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

municate with his reader at "various levels." The ridiculizing effect of his
gestures and conversation as he chases Ludmilla around the desk is en-
hanced by her flat rejection of his physical person. The unavoidable gap
between readers and authors is underscored, with the noticeable privileg-
ing of Ludmilla who is consistent in her desire to remain a reader. She does
not want to become involved with Silas Flannery for the same reason that
she does not go to publishing houses. For her, to see how books are created
(or to know the author intimately) would break the illusion of fiction. As
a result, the author could never succeed in imposing his views or in dom-
inating her. This is where the text dynamics comes into full view. The rep-
etition of a traditional plot sequence-an older man who tries to seduce a
younger, attractive woman is rejected by her-is coupled with a different
perspective on the author-reader relationship. On the one hand we have
an author who wants to bridge the gap between him and his reader and
on the other hand, a reader who is not interested in the author's intentions.
The same play of similarity and difference is used to subvert traditional
narrative conventions in the interpolation of the novel "incipits". The ex-
tensive use of the first person narrators emphasizes narratorial power in
creating dense fictional worlds. Also, the dramatic immediacy of the frag-
ments is aimed to draw the reader in from the very first sentence. As we
read, in parallel with the Reader, we become aware of the tendency of the
first person narrative voices to alienate themselves and concentrate on the
analysis of their consciousness. The narrator-hero in "Sul tappeto di foglie
illuminato dalla luna" arrives at such an elevated degree of self conscious-
ness that he is able to record with much accuracy the sensations involved
in his sexual encounter with Madame Miyagi: "Per quanto angustiato da
queste circostanze, riuscivo a concentrarmi e a suddividere la sensazione
generica del mio sesso stretto dal sesso della signora Miyagi nelle sensazi-
oni parcellari dei singoli punti di me e di lei via via sottoposti a pressione
dal mio movimento scorrevole e dalle sue contrazioni convulse" (245). His
perseverance in learning how to distinguish sensations under the guid-
ance of Mr. Okeda reaches thus its peak in the physical act of love-making
with Mr. Okeda's wife.
The double intentionality of Calvino's text becomes clear in the contin-
uous interplay between traditional narrative techniques and the new, puz-
zling structure of the text which we see unfolding as we read. To decode
the parody of narrative conventions in a complex text such as Se una notte
d'inverno un viaggiatore, we have to know, as Linda Hutcheon says, not
only "the usual artistic codes" (1985, 93) but also, we have to be able to rec-
ognize the parody and the model parodied.
As indicated earlier, another level of parody in Calvino's novel is the
parody of the Reader as hero. Having discussed the controlling function of
the narrative voice in its relationship with the Reader, I will attempt now to
MARIE-ANNE
VISOI 165

show how parody exposes the features of the hero in the frame story. My
intention is to demonstrate that self-consciousness, as the dominating char-
acteristic of this hero, takes a different dimension in the context of reading.
In my analysis of the fictional structure of the novel, I have showed how the
Reader appears to exist only through his function of reading.
As the narrative voice faithfully registers his reactions in the process of
reading, we become aware of the self-consciousness of the Reader. His
search for the book that he wants to finish overlaps his search for the attrac-
tive Other Reader, Ludmilla. From this encounter, the Reader appears as
the hero of a primitive tale in search for a beautiful woman. The self-con-
sciousness of reading is now paralleled by the self-consciousness of the
hero who wants to win Ludmilla's love but is too shy. Likewise, Allan Felix
played by Woody Allen in "Play It Again, Sam" directed by Herbert Ross
phantasizes having the famous Rick (played by Humphrey Bogart in "Cas-
ablanca" as his "mentor" in his unsuccessful relationships with women.
There are obvious differences between Calvino's hero and Allan. To
mention only a few, the Reader's "model" is somewhat abstract, Ludmilla
as an ideal reader, whereas Allan has a definite model. Also, the wishes of
our Reader are more precise, such as to find the continuation of the book
and to win Ludmilla while Allan wants to change his whole attitude (he
wants to be "cool"). What both heroes have in common, however, is their
inadaptability, enhanced by a self-consciousness which holds them back
from a fulfilling relationship (with books and with people, for that matter).
This is, in fact, the basis of my comparison. What I hope to be able to show
is how the narrative strategies in Calvino's novel give parody a different
twist than it does the cinematographic technique in "Play It Again, Sam."
To start, I will recall the teasing voice of the narrator in chapter one of
Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore. One of the first questions that comes
to mind when we hear this babbling talk is: who is it addressed to? The
voice speaks, in a familiar tone to someone who is about to begin reading
Calvino's novel, Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore. However, it is diffi-
cult to place this Reader in the fictional frame of the book. As we men-
tioned previously, there is a visible lack of physical detail which is
commonly provided by the narrator in order that the reader be able to
form an image of this character. The playfulness of the narrator becomes,
at times, irritating as it takes into account every movement of this invisible
Reader. I say invisible because we, as readers, are constantly hindered to
form a well-defined image of the narrator's partner of discussion. A series
of images moving at high speed are evoked by the narrative voice. We are
at a loss about the gender of this person (in chapter 2 we find out that he
is a male Reader) and we infer that the world in which the Reader moves
in resembles very much to our own. One thing is certain: this person, the
Reader of Calvino's novel, has lost hope in personal life, in people and in
166 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

events. The only exception to this hopeless outlook on life seems to be the
pleasure of reading, where expectations, we are told, can be easily more or
less fulfilled: "E coi libri? Ecco, proprio perche lo hai escluso in ogni altro
campo, credi che sia giusto concederti ancora questo piacere giovanile
dell'aspettativa in un settore ben circoscritto come quello dei libri, dove
pub andarti male o andarti bene, ma il rischio della delusione non e grave"
(5).
Here we have a Reader who, displeased with life and the world in gen-
eral, finds solace in books. The decision to buy the new book by Calvino is
approved by the narrator ("Hai fatto bene." ) and the details of the Read-
er's first contact with the book are minutely recorded: the impressions giv-
en by the freshly published book, the impatience of the Reader who is
eager to start reading. As the narrative voice enlists the possible places
where a book could be read, there is a noticeable trace of authority which
increases toward the end of the first chapter. The decision that the best
place to read is "at home" is suddenly made by the narrator who follows
from now on every reaction of the Reader: "Insomma, e preferibile tu ten-
ga a freno l'impazienza e aspetti ad aprire il libro quando sei a casa. Ora
si. Sei nella tua stanza, tranquillo, apri il libro alla prima pagina, no all'ul-
tima, per prima cosa vuoi vedere quant'e lungo" (9).
If the narrative voice in Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore is overtly
leading the Reader to open the book and read, the first scene in "Play It
Again, Sam" is rendered at once comical by Allan's immobility while
watching the final scene of "Casablanca." When I say immobility I think of
Jean-Louis Baudry's hypothesis that "the cinematographic apparatus
brings about a state of artificial regression"(Baudry 1992, 703-704). For
about five minutes we have a "close-up" of Allan: we see his face, the
mournful expression of his eyes, the mouth opening in awe. Our whole at-
tention is thus attracted by this "close-up" and as we watch Allan watch-
ing the movie we become temporarily aware of the forceful
persuasiveness of the "cinematographic apparatus." For us, the signifi-
cance (Pudovkin 1958, 67) of this first scene will be confirmed throughout
the movie. The fact that the camera withholds presenting Rick gives us the
opportunity to observe Allan's reactions closely. When the angle of the
camera changes and Rick appears in the scene of the airport, we have in
him the prototype, self-reliant, American hero. In contrast, Allan seems a
clumsy, ordinary man. Rick's heroic gesture in the movie-he lets Ilse, his
former lover, leave Casablanca with her husband, Victor-symbolizes for
Allan, as we will see later, everything that he lacks: confidence in his mas-
culinity, success with women, sexual prowess. Towards the end of the
movie he is watching, Allan starts mimicking and smiles, but when the
lights are on and "Casablanca" ends, he has difficulty adjusting. He starts
a monologue which plays on the themes of self-esteem and marital prob-
MARIE-ANNE
VISOI 167

lems. He puts himself down and we understand that what bothers him the
most at the moment is his separation from his wife. The movie, it appears,
arouses his unconscious, and he deplores the fact that his wife left him. His
insecurity is heightened by memories of past conversations and he sus-
pects that it might be because of him having a sexual problem (she used to
watch TV while they were making love). Allan's rhetorical question:
"Why can't I be cool?" refers to his phantasizing of being like Rick. His
self-consciousness at his inability to conform to the ideal hero represented
by Rick is underscored by his imagined dialogue with Rick. With this
model in mind and his memorized lines ("The world is full of dames, all
you got to do is whistle," as Rick says), Allan tries to imitate his behavior
patterns, particularly his nonchalance with women but he fails at it. The
reason for his failure is obvious: by trying to follow his model too closely,
he ignores reality and cannot adapt to the situation. His gestures are imi-
tations of Rick's gestures but they appear comical when accompanied by
his self-consciousness. He is constantly putting himself down by analyz-
ing himself too much. When trying to make a good impression, his behav-
ior becomes ridiculously absurd, distancing him more than ever from his
ideal. This is what happens when his friends, Dick and Linda, introduce
him to Sharon. He puts on too much perfume, wants to create a certain at-
mosphere in his home but instead of showing "tremendous poise," he
makes a fool of himself. The interesting fact is that he does not even realize
that Sharon utterly dislikes him. The problem here is that Allan is not able
to perceive reality as it is. He even says at one point, "How did I misread
the signs," so he detects vaguely that something is wrong with his ability
to distinguish phantasy from reality. Linda is the only woman in his life
with whom he can be himself: a nice, over-sensitive individual with intel-
lectual tastes, and this is exactly how she sees him. When Allan says: "Bog-
art is the perfect image," Linda retorts, "You have to be you," because she
understands his useless struggle in pretending to be someone else. Allan's
insecurity undermines all his other positive features and draws attention
instead, in a comical, parodic fashion, to his flaws.
If Allan is insecure about his attitude with women, the Reader in Se una
notte d'inverno un viaggiatore proves to be unable to control himself when
his reading is interrupted. As the narrative voice reports, the Reader can-
not accept the uncommon manner of reading (with interruptions). Being
used to stereotype, linear reading, he reacts negatively when not being
able to continue reading and therefore starts his search for the "nondefec-
tive" book:
Sappiamo che sei piuttosto impulsivo, ma hai imparato a controllar-
ti. La cosa che ti esapera di piu e trovarti alla merc6 del fortuito,
dell'aleatorio, del probabilistico, nelle cose e nelle azioni umane, la
sbadataggine, l'approssimativita, l'imprecisione tua o altrui. In
168 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

questi casi la passione che ti domina e l'impazienza di cancellare gli

effetti perturbatori di quell'arbitrarieta o distrazione, di ristabilire il
corso regolare degli avvenimenti. Non vedi l'ora di riavere in mano
un esemplare non difettoso del libro che hai cominciato (30).

You know you are somewhat impulsive, but you have learned to control
yourself. The thing that most exasperatesyou is tofind yourselfat themer-
cy of thefortuitous, the aleatory, the random,in things and in human ac-
tions-carelessness, approximation,imprecision, whether your own or
others'.In such instancesyour dominantpassion is the impatienceto erase
the disturbingeffectsof thatarbitrarinessor distraction,to re-establishthe
normal course of events (27).

Ludmilla, the Other Reader met in the bookstore, becomes the model
against the Reader measures himself: "I1guaio e che lei di romanzi ne ha
letti molti di piju di te, specialmente stranieri, e ha una memoria minuzi-
osa, allude a degli episodi precisi..." (34). His self-consciousness about his
reading knowledge becomes obvious in the dialogue with Ludmilla,
which resembles to a great degree, one of the dialogues between Linda
and Allan in "Play It Again, Sam." In the movie, Allan's interior mono-
logue exposes his desire to seduce Linda in order to prove his masculinity.
Rick's ghost is constantly guiding Allan during the seduction scene. Rick
discusses kissing procedures, compliments and other means to seduce
Linda, and Allan acts as if he is following Rick's advice step by step. In the
novel, the narrative voice frames the dialogue, laying bare the Reader's se-
cret desire to seduce Ludmilla by using the pretext of the defective book
as an introduction to his advances. The stage directions given by Rick in
the movie ("Move closer," "Will you relax," "Put your hand around her
shoulder") are similar to the narrator's encouragements to start a conver-
sation with Ludmilla. The manipulations of the narrative voice become
clear when, at the Reader's suggestion made to Ludmilla to meet again,
the narrator's reaction is expressed in teasing remarks:
-Oh si,-risponde. Hai sentito? Ha detto: 'Oh si'. Tocca a te ora, di
tentare un aggancio.

-Allora spero di tomare a incontrarla, visto che e anche lei cliente

qui, cosi ci scambieremo le impressioni di lettura -. E lei ri-
sponde:-Volentieri. Tu sai dove vuoi arrivare, e una sottilissima
rete che stai tendendo (35).

"Oh,yes," she answers. Did you hear that? She said, "Oh,yes." It's your
turn now, it's up to you to makea move.
MARIE-ANNE VISOI 169

"Then I hope I'll meet you again, since you're also a customer here; that
way we could exchangeour impressionsafter reading the book."And she
answers, "Withpleasure."You know whereyou want to arrive, it is afine
net you are spreadingout. (31)

The parody in the movie scene results from the superimposition of the
two figures: Allan, who wants desperately to be like Rick, appears at first
as an anti-hero: he is afraid to kiss Linda, he is too shy to put his arm
around her or he is afraid that Linda might find Rick's lines too old fash-
ioned and she won't "buy" them. The persuasive power of the cinemato-
graphic techniques is revealed not only in Allan's image which simulates
reality but also, in the exposure of his unconscious (Baudry 1992, 703-4).
Thus, we are able to see Allan, the anti-hero, side by side with Rick, the
hallucinatory embodiment of his own insecurity.
In the novel, the parodic aura of the scene is more subdued since the
narrator's strategy hinders the process of image building of characters
(particularly, the image of the hero). The function of parody becomes then
to draw attention on the hero's manner of reading rather than on his atti-
tude toward Ludmilla. What we have here is a caricature of a hero who is
self-conscious about his reading, not about his behaviour with women. As
I have already mentioned, the narrator's teasing reflects, in fact, the hero's
ability to seduce Ludmilla. Therefore, by underscoring the hero's desire
for linear reading, the prominent feature that is exaggerated is his inability
to take narration as he finds it. Hence slapstick and buffoonery infiltrate
parody in this ambiguous portrayal of a hero who is at the same time a
"naive reader" (Eco 1976,200-260). The ironic distance achieved by parody
in "Play It Again, Sam" is constantly threatened by a trace of pathos
which, at the end, transforms the figure of Allan. The present that Allan
gives Linda for her birthday-a plastic skunk-becomes a symbol of Allan
in the movie. It is a ridiculous, absurd present to give to a friend (as Lin-
da's husband points out) but Linda loves his gift because it has an emo-
tional value: it shows Allan's sensitivity. This is why in the final scene
Allan's identification with Rick acquires a more human dimension, as he
is left in the airport, to rejoice at his ability to imitate Rick. By asserting his
own feelings for his best friend, Dick, he manages to overcome his insecu-
rity and appears in a different light, event neatly encapsulated by Rick's
final remark: "That was great! You've developed a style...."
In the case of the hero in the novel, parody has definitely a didactic tone
which becomes obvious in the last two chapters. The hero is submitted to
the stereotype ending of the main story which is promptly confirmed by
the seventh reader-character's view of stories: "-Lei crede che ogni sto-
ria debba avere un principio e una fine? Anticamente un racconto aveva
170 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

solo due modi per finire: passate tutte le prove, l'eroe e l'eroina si sposa-
vano oppure morivano. II senso ultimo a cui rimandano tutti i racconti ha
due facce: la continuita della vita, l'inevitabilita della morte" (304).
At the other pole, we have the "naive reader" who has learned from his
encounters with other texts and other reader-characters that reading is an
activity that could change expectations. His answer to Ludmilla, the Other
Reader: "Ancora un momento, sto per finire Se una notte d'invernoun viag-
giatore di Italo Calvino" (305) disrupts the authority of the narrative voice
and installs him, as Reader, in a privileged position (Cannon 1981,105).
His decision to finish reading Calvino's novel in spite of its interruptions
reflects not only a conservative need for closure but also, a change in ex-
pectations as reader of a devious text.
So far, the two levels of parody explored in my analysis have been, as
intended, the parody of narrative conventions and the parody of the hero
as "naive reader." Self-parody, as the last level of parody in Se una notte
d'inverno un viaggiatorethat I want to discuss is closely related to the self-
referentiality of the text. The "naive irony" (Frye, 1990,41) of the narrative
voice in its overt reference to the novel itself highlights self-parody in
Calvino's novel. The narrator's game is ultimately revealed in this aspect
of parody. We have seen how our attention is drawn to the continuous in-
terplay between traditional narrative techniques of the novel's "incipits"
and the maze-like structure of the whole novel. Similarly, the self-con-
sciousness of the first-person narrators as well as that of the hero who is
not able to cope with the textual interruption, clearly points to the actual
interruptions of the text itself.
Parody becomes thus a tool which brings forward both the linearity
and the discontinuity of reading. The multiplying effect of the novel's "in-
cipits" is therefore not just to mirror the novel we read, but to create a dis-
tance from the frame story in which the narratorial discourse focuses on
"creating the competence" (Eco 1976, 7) of the Reader. The repeated refer-
ences to the narrative structure of the text define Calvino's novel for us. In
the frame story, for instance, self-referentiality is overtly exposed in Mara-
na's project to produce a "trap-novel," made of a series of interrupted
translations:
Per questo Marana propone al Sultano uno stratagemma ispirato
alla tradizione letteraria dell'Oriente: interrompera la traduzione
nel punto piiu appassionante e attacchera a tradurre un altro ro
manzo, inserendolo nel primo con qualche rudimentale espediente,
per esempio un personaggio del primo romanzo che apre un libro e
si mette a leggere... Anche il secondo romanzo s'interrompera e la-
scera posto a un terzo, che non andra avanti molto senza aprirsi a
un quarto, e cosi via... (145)
MARIE-ANNE VISOI 171

And so Marana proposesto the Sultan a stratagempromptedby the liter-

ary traditionof the Orient:he will breakoff this translationat the moment
of greatest suspense and will start translating anothernovel, inserting it
into thefirst throughsome rudimentaryexpedient;forexample,a charac-
ter in thefirst novel opens a bookand starts reading.Thesecondnovel will
also breakoff to yield to a third,which will not proceedveryfar beforeopen-
ing into a fourth, and so on... (125)
The novel as fragmentary discourse becomes thus the "authorized
transgression" (Hutcheon 1985, 26). Self-parody draws attention to the
parodied text and simultaneously forces us, the readers of Calvino's novel
to trace how we read the text ourselves. The hermeneutic (Hutcheon 1992,
156) aspect of reference in this post-modernist novel makes us aware of
our own way of reading and brings into focus our relationship with its
text.
UNIVERSITYOF TORONTO
172 PARODYIN THEPOSTMODERNIST
NOVEL

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