The idea of the story is intriguing: mute travelers tell stories to each other with a tarot deck and some gestures.
The first couple stories are great…until it starts turning into “Here is a knight of clubs card…that must mean that there was a knight…and he was angry, and tried to attack me with his club.” It felt like even Calvino was getting bored continuing along with the iterations that his formula was producing. It got rather tedious and unimaginative, which made me sad after having my expectations raised so high after reading Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” and “The Baron in the Trees.”
I personally didn’t have enough patience to make it to the big, literary, wonderful change of direction the book takes which other people’s more favorable reviews have mentioned. But you might!