This vibrant array of stories has Calvino adopting the styles of various influences (Borges and Nabakov among others) and playing within them just long enough to build some tension. However, the initial thrill of the frame story seems to get a little lost within its increasingly elaborate tangles. This larger tale seems, at times, fixated on a romantic element. Ultimately it doesn't seem especially concerned with how that unfolds. (I'll also note that the persistence of meta moments can at times feel a little...persistent.)

Many of the stories afford an intoxicating mystery without having to commit long enough to dive very deeply into their implications. It's a set of shooting stars. ( I don't want to undersell the stars, though. Some of them can be fairly thought provoking/affecting, even as a brief incipit.)

The one idea from the larger narrative that stuck with me was this: A great reader can pull truth and authenticity out of something that was written deliberately to be devoid of those things-- and the inverse is also true.