How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Hey, weapons aren't things to joke around with," I say, and hold out a hand, but she trains the revolver on me.
"Why not?" she says. "Women can't, but you men can? The real revolution will be when women carry arms."
"And men are disarmed? Does that seem fair to you, comrade? Women armed to do what?"
"To take your place. We on top, and you underneath. So you men can feel a bit of what it's like to be a woman. Go on, move, go over there, go over beside your friend,' she commands, still aiming the weapon at me." (8.52-8.55)
Here, we're reading from the novel called Without fear of wind or vertigo. A woman named Irina grabs a gun, and after saying that she feels tempted to kill herself, aims it at the two men near her. She's making a statement that is beyond feminist, saying that women should rule the world rather than being equal with men.
Since this passage is in one of the fictional novels, it doesn't adopt that same scathing tone toward Irina's feminism as it does for Lotaria's. So is Calvino suggesting that being feminist is okay, as long as it never trespasses on the sacred ground of "innocent" reading pleasure?
Quote #5
It was our common interest that kept us together: Bernadette is a girl who catches on right away; in that mess, either we managed to get out of it together or we were both done for. But certainly Bernadette had something else in the back of her mind: a girl like her, if she's going to get by, has to be able to count on somebody who knows his way around; if she had got me to rid her of Jojo, it was in order to put me in his place. (16.17)
In Looks down in the gathering shadow, the main character, Ruedi the Swiss, reflects on his young lover, a former enemy turned accomplice. Ruedi believes that Bernadette hasn't just sided with him because she loves him, but because she finds him to be an improvement on her former love interest. Since this is a novel embedded in another novel, we can't necessarily pinpoint a view on gender. But what is clear is that, like all of the other novels that hope to elicit our desire to read on, this one tries to get our attention by making a woman into a sexual object for a manly protector.
Quote #6
The pursuit of the interrupted book, which instilled in you a special excitement since you were conducting it together with the Other Reader, turns out to be the same thing as pursuing her, who eludes you in a proliferation of mysteries, deceits, disguises...."(13.53)
Ladies and books—the two best things on this planet, apparently. If on a winter's night a traveler draws a direct connection between the desire you have to finish the books you've started and the desire you have for Ludmilla. As the novel unfolds, you sense that Calvino is actually talking about a general form of human desire; the sex drive and the drive to keep reading are just particular cases of it. It's all connected to the thrill of pursuing something, and the satisfaction you think you will feel when this pursuit is over. You know very little about Ludmilla, and that's exactly what makes you attracted to her. Similarly, you know little about the books you've started reading, and that's what makes you want to keep reading. Isn't it all so tantalizing?