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In a network of lines that enlace
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If on a winter’s night a traveler, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Act of Reading
Academia and Publishing
Censorship and Government Oppression
Love, Lust, and Anxiety
Summary
Analysis
Ludmilla is late for her meeting with you (the Reader) at the café. Eventually, you are so preoccupied waiting for her that you can no longer read. Just then a server at the café calls you and says you have a phone call. It’s Ludmilla on the line. She invites you to her house, although she says she isn’t there yet.
Whereas the previous chapter involved a narrator who seemed to be haunted by an ever-present telephone ring, this chapter begins with the opposite, where the Reader is impatiently awaiting a call that seems like it might never come. At both extremes, the difficulty of communication can cause anxiety.
Themes
You go to Ludmilla’s house and can tell she lives alone, although you try not to snoop too much. The narrator pauses the story to give more details about you, the Reader. Until this point, the narrator has revealed few details about the Reader, other than the fact that the Reader is male, so that any potential reader can identify with the Reader. It’s a deliberate choice that “you,” the Reader, have no name, because by giving Ludmilla a name and referring to her in the third person, she now has a more concrete form.
While it seemed the chapters of the frame story had begun to settle into a rhythm, here the narrator abruptly and deliberately disrupts the flow of the narrative. The narrator once again draws attention to the conventions of a novel in a way that breaks the audience’s immersion, indicating a distinction between “the Reader” who is actively reading the novel and “the Reader” about whom that audience reads. (Note that while the narrator suggests that leaving “the Reader” or “you” nameless means that any potential reader may identify with the Reader, they fail to account for the book’s non-male readers.) The novel itself seems to be struggling to communicate, mirroring the Reader’s own anxieties about communication.
Themes
The narrator temporarily changes perspectives, calling Ludmilla “you” and only referring to you in the third person, as “The Reader.” Ludmilla lives in a house where the prominent placement of books shows that she keeps the outside world at a distance. Her kitchen suggests that she cooks somewhat regularly and has modest tastes.
The narrator describes in the third person how the Reader looks around Ludmilla’s house. While Ludmilla’s possessions are important to her, her house nevertheless hides many aspects of her personality. Her books seem to show that she isn’t the type of Reader who re-reads things.
Themes
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The narrator changes back to his original perspective so that when he says “you,” he means the Reader, not Ludmilla. You are reassured that Ludmilla has so many books because reading is solitary and that suggests that she doesn’t have any men in her life.
Themes
You hear a key turn and are surprised to see it’s not Ludmilla but a man entering. You tell him Ludmilla isn’t around. It turns out to be Irnerio, who says he knows Ludmilla is gone but that he’s come to pick up one of her books. He doesn’t want to read it but instead to use it as material for an art project he’s working on. You are dismayed at how easily Irnerio just takes a book from Ludmilla’s shelf, which seemed like a wall meant to keep out invaders.
Themes
You wonder about the relationship between Irnerio (who has said he never reads) and Ludmilla (the avid reader). Irnerio wants to take In the network of lines that enlace for his art project, but you don’t want to give up your own book, so you instead hand Irnerio a very similar looking one. In fact, you realize the new book is almost identical to In a network of lines that enlace—and it’s also written by Silas Flannery. Irnerio explains that the book you’ve handed him isn’t Ludmilla’s.
Themes
Irnerio takes you into a little storage room where there is a typewriter on a table. You see that in the typewriter is a sheet that says, “Translation by Ermes Marana.” You think back to how all the women you read about in the letters of Marana seemed to remind you of Ludmilla. You ask if Marana lives in this house, but Irnerio says it was Marana’s time to leave. When he was around, Ludmilla was unhappy and didn’t read. Marana has a way to make even true things seem false.
Themes
Just then, Ludmilla enters. She’s happy to see you with Irnerio. Sometime later, while you’re all having tea, Irnerio disappears. Ludmilla tells you it’s common for him to leave without saying anything. When you ask questions to Ludmilla about her visitors, she asks if you’re jealous. You say you have no right to be jealous, so she asks if you could imagine a future scenario where you would have a right to be jealous.
Themes
The narrator now uses “you” in the plural to address both the Reader (you) and the Other Reader (Ludmilla), since the Reader and Other Reader are in bed together, forming a “two-headed person.” But the narrator notes that actually, from a grammatical standpoint, perhaps it makes more sense to refer to each reader as a singular “you” rather than both as a plural “you.” The Reader and the Other Reader “read” each other’s bodies in bed.
Themes
Now the narrator calls the Reader “you” again. You tell Ludmilla about the book you were just reading. She wants to read it immediately, so you get out of bed to find the book. But as you search, you can’t find it—Irnerio took it for his art show after all. You instead come back with Ludmilla’s other copy of the book. She says she received it from Silas Flannery himself.
Themes
But as it turns out, the book you found is not the one you expected after all. Ludmilla explains that Ermes Marana always liked to play tricks on Ludmilla and make things false, partly because he was always afraid of a rival coming between him and Ludmilla: her passion for reading. As you look closer at the book in your hands, you realize that it’s not actually In a network of lines that enlace but in fact a book called In a network of lines that intersect.
Themes
