<p>Bringing Luciano Floridi’s conceptions of distant writing and narrative isotropy in connection with Italo Calvino’s praxis and philosophy of literature yields a fundamental insight into the virtual interaction (the spasmodic tango) of human and Large Language Model (LLM) in the production of literary texts. Floridi’s concept of ‘distant writing’ is a methodology for using LLMs to produce text, with the writer taking on the role of designer, rather than producer, of the text. Floridi conceptualizes the ‘boundless narrative isotropy’ of distant writing as: “the principle that any narrative domain is equally workable in any direction, provided coherence is maintained”. Calvino’s work provides metaphorical models of isotropic narrative exploration that emphasize both the potential of distant writing and the importance of the reader for the constitution of literature, thereby anticipating Floridi’s conclusions. By exploring the mapping of Floridi’s LLM and Calvino’s tarot decks onto the explication of distant writing the paper shows that there is continuity between close and distant writing. Distant writing as process of literary production aligns with Calvino’s creative practice and vision of a combinatorial writing in which a machine could replace the human writer: Calvino’s practice is the <i>disautomated</i> counterpart of distant writing. The result is the navigation of narrative space, while maintaining narrative isotropy: a de-anthropomorphized conception of what it is to produce narrative literature that undermines any technological exceptionalism about LLMs' narrative capabilities, and refutes Floridi’s idea of a qualitatively new access to narrative modality via LLMs. Finally, this conclusion is connected to the multiplicity of reading and an informational conception of authorship; the problem of automating cultural universalism is raised; and literary reductionism is conceptualized as threat for the AI-generated literature to come.</p>