A Reader Writes About a Reader

It's ironic.  Most recently, I've been reading If On A Winters Night A Traveler, by Italo Calvino.   Thus far, it's really good - I highly recommend what I've read of it so far.  It's about a reader who it trying to make it through a book - every alternate chapter is a chapter from the book he's reading, and the other is from the reader's point of view.  He keeps having to stop and start his readings.  It's a very weird book to keep up with.  I just feel like, not for lack of literary prowess or intelligence, I can't keep up with this book; it just keeps running away from me.  It's like sand running through your fingers no matter how hard you squeeze - but you're enjoying the process of squeezing the sand regardless.  That said though, somehow I've lost it - I made it a few chapters in, put it down somewhere, and it's just... gone.  I'm not too worried; things always find their way back to me eventually.  The irony is that I lost this book midway through, right as it had hooked me, much as the character in the book keeps getting interrupted in his readings by one thing or another.  So you have to wonder:  does life imitate art, or does art imitate life?  Either I'm the reader, or I'm reading about the reader.