In this next section of the bought book our narrator is reading, the story begins with new characters and setting. Titled "Without fear of wind or vertigo," it takes place in what seems to be a war zone of a country on the brink of revolution. Therefore, we have intrigue and mystery; we also have some romance in the manner of menage a trois.
Calvino’s strange way of talking about reading and writing the same story he is telling is losing its intrusive quality and it becomes more natural as I read along:
I am narrating this incident in all its details because–not immediately, but afterward–it was considered a premonition of everything that was to happen, and also because all these images of the period must cross the page like the army vehicles crossing the city (even if the words "army vehicles" evoke somewhat indefinite images; it’s not bad for a certain indefiniteness to remain in the air, appropriate for the confusion of the period)…(p. 79)
It is not mere journal-form here, wherein the author may write with the understanding by the reader that the words are meant specifically as documentation, perhaps, or a diary of a certain time. The words above supposedly are from a novel–albeit within another novel. Calvino appears to do something, that is, use an element of style, and then proceed to explain and examine it.
On another point, Calvino does not shy away from sensuality in writing, but puts it in a most eloquent manner:
I tried to escape, insinuating myself with crawling movements toward the center of the spirals, where the lines slithered like serpents following the writing of Irina’s limbs, supple and restless, in a slow dance where it is not the rhythm that counts but the knotting and loosening of serpentine lines. There are two serpents whose heads Irina grasps with her hands, and they react to her grasp, intensifying their own aptitude for rectilinear penetration, which she was insisting, on the contrary, that the maximum of controlled power should correspond to a reptile pliability bending to overtake her in impossible contortions. (p. 89)
Given Calvino’s simple setup for this scene, that the trio are inseparable, there can be no doubt as to the menage a trois taking place here, confirmed by the "two serpents whose heads Irina grasps…" The plot point, however, is not to inject the reading with sex itself, but to emphasize both the relationship of the trio and to concentrate on the language used in describing the scene: rectilinear, serpentine. Calvino is drawing lines here that the male characters are desperate to uphold and yet Irina is determined to maneuver into graceful curves.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology