If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Believing that mirrors help his thought process, the narrator has been “collecting kaleidoscopes” to improve his decision-making. The collection has proved quite profitable: The narrator makes many successful deals by looking at the business world as though it were a kaleidoscope. Many of these deals are complicated, however, and he fears that his competitors (and even partners) may try to harm or kidnap him. As a protection measure, he has deployed a fleet of five Mercedes cars to function as decoys. The cars resemble his own and drive around his home, which has a heavily armored gate. The narrator’s ex-wife, Elfrida, is among those the narrator fears will uncover his affair with Lorna, a divorced woman. His fears intensify, so he begins staging fake kidnappings to distract his enemies.

As the fake kidnappings continue, the narrator becomes interested in insurance scams. During one fake kidnapping, however, he’s placed in a mirrored room inside his house. At first, the narrator fears that the kidnapping he orchestrated has somehow become real kidnapping. He then realizes that Lorna is tied up in the middle of the room. As he frees her, she angrily accuses him of kidnapping her. She believes that he’s responsible for her being imprisoned. Elfrida enters. She reveals that she kidnapped the narrator but claims that she did so to protect him. She asks him how to escape the mirrored room, but the narrator admits that he has no idea. Staring into the mirrors, he struggles to figure out which image is actually him versus a reflection. He feels “lost”.

In Chapter 8, Silas Flannery takes over as narrator. He’s writing in his diary every day. Before he begins, he spies on a female neighbor, using a spyglass. Each day, she sits in a chair on her deck and reads. He sometimes imagines her reading his prose and watching him as he watches her. To Silas, the stories he writes sometimes seem to “already exist,” and he merely translates these ethereal stories into written words. In one such story, two very different writers are colleagues. One is quite productive, while the other struggles torturously to finish a work. Over time, the productive writer’s attitude toward his colleague’s work shifts from dismissive to envious. He realizes that his own work is comparatively “superficial.” Silas imagines a young woman receiving a manuscript from each of these writers, reading them in the sun as she always does, and what might happen if she accidently returned the wrong manuscript to each writer. This, he imagines, would offend both men. He considers the other results of such a mix-up.

He looks up from his desk at a poster of Snoopy the anthropomorphic beagle from the Peanuts comic strip. In the poster, Snoopy is at a typewriter, typing, “[I]t was a dark and stormy night…” (176). Silas thinks about the beginning of this sentence; the use of the pronoun “it” makes the sentence seem utterly impersonal. Silas has become obsessed with the poster; he fixates on beginnings too often and may need to take the poster down so that he can finish his projects. Next, he looks at a copy of Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoevsky. His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Ermes Marana, who claims that he’s the translator of Silas’s novels. Marana has a warning for Silas: Unauthorized translations of his books are being made that bear no resemblance to the originals. Although Silas claims that he’s insulted, he’s actually intrigued. Marana explains his own situation. He currently lives in Japan, where many of these false novels are produced. His rambling, disconnected thoughts switch to the prospect that any author is actually a “fictious character” invented by other authors so that stories can be told.

Days later, Marana’s words linger in Silas’s mind. He reflects on his own writing process. As a point of comparison, he considers how the Quran is thought to be a collaborative work between the Prophet Muhammed and the scribe who wrote down his thoughts. During the writing process, Muhammed allowed the scribe the privilege of finishing a sentence. In doing so, he caused a crisis of faith for the scribe. He didn’t know that this decision was part of Allah’s divine plan from the beginning. To clear his mind of worries about publishers and agents, who are pressuring him to finish his novel, Silas takes a walk along a trail through the mountains. Along the way, he encounters a small group of boys who say they’re searching for alien spaceships. They mention a local rumor: A writer is holed up nearby, working on his novel, and he believes that his novels are beamed into his mind by aliens. The idea amuses Silas.

After his walk, Silas continues to experience writer’s block. He has received a visit from Lotaria, a student who is writing a thesis about his book. He’s concerned that Lotaria is “already convinced” of what she’ll find in his work and is working backward to construct a theory based on her biases and interests. He prefers that people uncover ideas in his work more organically. Lotaria says that her sister, Ludmilla, uses Silas’s passive approach but that she thinks her own way is a better way to approach literature, especially when considering less interesting writers. She considers Silas a less interesting writer. That night, Silas has paranoid sensations of shadowy figures at the edge of his vision. He fears that people are moving things in his house. When he looks at his typed manuscript, he can’t remember putting these words to paper.

Silas lends Lotaria a selection of books. She mentions that she uses her computer to analyze books; it allows her to read each book in just five minutes by scanning for frequently used words. After articles and other common words are removed, she analyzes the remaining list of words to form an idea of the book. She provides several examples of her research. Silas is concerned that she’s reading his books in this way. When he sits down to write, this concern dominates his mind. Later, he meets Ludmilla for the first time. She counters her sister’s beliefs, though Silas realizes that her criticisms are directed more at Marana than Lotaria. When he asks, Ludmilla confirms that he fits her preconceptions about him as an “absolutely ordinary person” (190). She wishes she could watch him write. She talks about the act of writing, which she thinks can reveal the truth hidden inside novels. Silas agrees. He makes a romantic advance, but she squirms free, saying that he has mistaken her interest. She could sleep with him, she says, but this wouldn’t help either of them understand Silas better. He exists in her mind more as an author. Ludmilla leaves.

Silas returns to his spyglass. Now, however, the woman isn’t on her deck. When Ludmilla returns later that day, Silas mentions the woman. Because the woman always seems calm, Ludmilla suggests that her books must be deeply upsetting. Later, Silas reflects on hidden or mistakenly attributed books (commonly known as apocrypha). He wonders whether he could make such works with Marana’s help. Since he doesn’t know where Marana is, he can’t do so. Ludmilla refuses to reveal Marana’s location. She’d rather stay away from him.

On another walk, Silas meets the young UFO enthusiasts again. Claiming that he can show them the alien’s book, he takes them to his house and gives them the spyglass so that they can watch the woman on the deck. She’s still absent, however, so he points the spyglass at a rocky ledge where an urbanely dressed man is reading. Later, Silas receives a visit from another reader (the Reader from the other parts of the novel). The Reader shows him two copies of one of Silas’s books, which are very different inside. The stories about a jogger obsessed with phones and a man collecting kaleidoscopes don’t match. Silas dismisses the “mysterious coincidence,” saying that the book is fake. He advises the Reader to forget about the matter. The Reader isn’t convinced. He’s unhappy that he can’t finish the books. Silas reveals the real title of one of the novels: On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon by a Japanese writer named Takakumi Ikoka. Silas gives the Reader a copy of this book but in doing so seals the book. This hides the truth: The novel is completely different from what the Reader described. The Reader blames Marana for the proliferation of fake novels. Silas asks the Reader to do something about Marana. The Reader promises to search for him during a business trip to South America. Silas thinks Marana is in Japan but doesn’t reveal this to the Reader. The Reader mentions his own idea for a novel, built from the opening chapters of many separate novels, since he can never seem to finish a project. He often runs out of ideas halfway through the writing process. The protagonist of this hypothetical novel could actually be the Reader, who is always interrupted before he can finish a book. He outlines other characters, including a fraudulent translator and an Other Reader. Silas sends the Reader away with the sealed copy of On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon. This will allow Silas to spend time with the Other Reader (Ludmilla). Silas imagines a sister for the Other Reader so that the Reader won’t be alone.

The narrator walks along a path with Mr. Okeda, passing trees where the yellow ginkgo leaves have begun to fall. The leaves seem beautiful to the narrator, but when he mentions this, Mr. Okeda is reluctant to be as open. He remains noncommittal. Although the narrator has lived with the Okeda family for some time, he only recently realized that Makiko—the youngest daughter in the family—is graceful and attractive. The narrator describes a walk he takes with Mr. Okeda, Makiko, and Mr. Okeda’s wife, Madame Miyagi. The narrator has observed tension in the Okeda marriage. When he bends down to pluck a water lily from the river, he feels Makiko’s nipple on one side of him and Madame Miyagi’s nipple on his other side. The narrator attempts to touch Makiko but instead touches Madame Miyagi. She seems “prepared to receive” (202) his touch.

In the following days, Mr. Okeda spends more time in his library, doing research. As a result, the narrator is solely in the company of Madame Miyagi and Makiko. In reality, he should be reordering Mr. Okeda’s file cards to help Mr. Okeda with his research. This bores the narrator, however, so he seeks the company of the women. One day in November, the narrator tries to arrange to meet up with Makiko. As they make plans, however, the narrator feels that his speech is becoming too energetic, and he becomes “aroused,” scaring Makiko. After she leaves, the narrator finds Madame Miyagi in a nearby room, making a flower arrangement. She notices that the narrator is sexually aroused and, leaving her flowers, approaches the narrator and takes off his clothes, revealing his erect penis. As Madame Miyagi holds his penis in her hands, Makiko walks into the room. The narrator desperately tries to explain that he didn’t intend for this to happen. Madame Miyagi ignores his pleas, however, pulling him to the floor. The narrator looks up and sees Mr. Okeda. He’s watching them writhe nakedly on the floor. Mr. Okeda seems uninterested in the narrator. He’s more interested in his wife and daughter. Gradually, the narrator realizes that Mr. Okeda won’t intervene. He’d rather pretend he saw nothing, thereby maintaining control over the narrator’s career through the threat of scandal. The narrator finds himself in a complicated and tense situation between mother and daughter, who each think he’s romantically interested in the other. As he lays with Madame Miyagi, he moans Makiko’s name and thinks of the falling leaves.