Ah-ha! Back to the good stuff!
I’ll admit the relationship is teetering on the melodramatic and sometimes goes quite over the hedge, but it’s really hard not to get caught up in the affair. To love someone and to be loved that much, especially these two people, plain as she is and rough as he is. I really want to see them resolved.
And the way he could so well articulate his love for her is beautiful.
We all have a lot of books laying around we’ve never read. We all have books in mind we want to read but never get to.
With that in mind I think Calvino is having some fun with at our failings by saying with his incomplete stories, “if you’re not gonna read them, I’m not gonna write them.”
I do want to take note of the image of the writing hand contorting from the prison cell window. That really stays with me