The blog for SUNY Binghamton's Spring'09 COLI 214B 02 Literature and Society Class. Chapter summaries, analyses and discussion of prescribed texts written by students.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Robert Stevens

Chapter 7 begins to provide some insight into Ludmilla's life and role in this whole story. Calvino talks about how you "the reader" are invited into her house to go over the new novel you have just discovered. She tells you how to get in, so then you proceed to look around her house once you arrive. Books are a very big deal to Ludmilla, and she is even a personal acquaintance of Silas Flannery (they were friends, but apparently they had a falling out). Marana is revealing himself more and more as a fraud as well, as now two stories by Flannery have the same name, with one passing throug Marana's translation, and the other not doing so. The reader is also becoming jealous of Irnerio, who has come to the house as well on his own accord.
The story "In a Network of Lines that Intersect" tells of a businessman that is obsessed with the concept of the kalideoscope. He is also extremely paranoid about being kidnapped by his "associates" and his wife finding out about his affair. As a result, he creates an elaborate rouse of false motorcades, counterplans, and the like. Unfortuantely, this does not stop his wife, who dose succeed in kidnapping him and his mistress.

Why the elaborate analyzation of the Reader and Ludmilla?
Does Irnerio have intentions with Ludmilla as well?
Why is it that the stories are getting more random?

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