The Castle of Crossed Destinies

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The Castle of Crossed Destinies is a curious novel by Italo Calvino that details a journey through a forest and a meeting between travelers (with hommage to Geoffrey Chaucer) who are inexplicably struck dumb. The characters in the novel recount their tales via Tarot cards, which are reconstructed by the narrator.

The novel is an exploration of how meaning is created, whether that be written via words (by the author, via the book, since the characters in the book cannot speak to each other) or by images (the tarot cards -- considered prophetic to some and are themselves open to many symbolic interpretations). It is, as often in Calvino's works, multi-layered and several levels of interpretations and readings are possible, based on the relationships between author-narrator-characters-reader.