Years ago I read Invisible Cities by Calvino and was mostly confused. But looking back, it quietly rewired how I see storytelling — structure, rhythm, even mood. Now I gravitate toward books with poetic logic and abstract framing, and I think it started with that one.
Have you ever read something that didn’t hit right away but ended up being foundational for your taste?
by NoraBlakely
3 Comments
For me it was reading *To the Lighthouse* by Virginia Woolf in my first year of university. Very difficult read for a newcomer. I would go on to write a thesis about it and stream of consciousness literature and employ that device heavily in my own writing.
100 years of solitude absolutely; I rarely think of plots as linear nowadays and tend to present things in a cyclical way
I read The Stranger very young because I liked the cover art of the copy at a library sale. I didn’t grasp the concepts, but I loved it. I think it was some 8 or so years later as an older teenager when I began grasping the concepts. I very much think this book shaped my preferences for pondering indifference.