Memories Images, Once They Are

You Walk For Days Among Trees And Among Stones. Rarely Does The Eye Light On A Thing, And Then Only When It Has Recognized That Thing As The Sign Of Another Thing: A Print In The Sand Indicates The Tiger's Passage; A Marsh Announces A Vein Of Water; The Hibiscus Flower, The End Of Winter. All The Rest Is Silent And Interchangeable; Trees And Stones Are Only What They Are.

You Are About To Begin Reading Italo Calvino's New Novel, If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel Every Other Thought. Let The World Around You Fade. Best To Close The Door; The Tv Is Always On In The Next Room. Tell The Others Right Away, "no, I Don't Want To Watch Tv!" Raise Your Voice -- They Won't Hear You Otherwise -- "i'm Reading! I Don't Want To Be Disturbed!" Maybe They Haven't Heard You, With All That Racket; Speak Louder, Yell: "i'm Beginning To Read Italo Calvino's New Novel!" Or If You Prefer, Don't Say Anything: Just Hope They'll Leave You Alone.

Your House, Being The Place In Which You Read, Can Tell Us The Position Books Occupy In Your Life, If They Are A Defense You Set Up To Keep The Outside World At A Distance, If They Area Dream Into Which You Sink As If Into A Drug, Or Bridges You Cast Toward The Outside, Toward The World That Interests You So Much That You Want To Multiply And Extend Its Dimensions Through Books.

Everything Can Change, But Not The Language That We Carry Inside Us, Like A World More Exclusive And Final Than One's Mother's Womb.

Novelists Tell That Piece Of Truth Hidden At The Bottom Of Every Lie.