The Cities

Asthe book continues it is evident how the cities have nothing to do with eachother, they are completely isolated and non relatable. Yet there is one way thecities con be interconnected. Human characteristics, if not humans themselvesare explained in every city. Calvino can describe a city with humancharacteristics like greed, memories, organization, patterns or can describethem through the persons that Marco Polo meets in his traveling: tempting,artistic, dreamful, and resourceful.

Themost confusing aspect of the book is the narration. It varies from first personto second person. Obvious that first person narrates form the point of view ofMarco Polo, yet the second person is hard to comprehend. Is Marco Polo talkingto the readers, or to Kublai Khan? Are the readers as important to be addressedby Marco Polo, or is it a simple dialogue between both characters.

Diomira: In Spanish the word means important women in the village. Polomentions the arrival to Diomira happens in September, spring time, meaningbirth the revival after winter. “From a terrace a woman’s voice cries ooh!, isthat he feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived anevening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time” (PG. 7).The joy a mother feels at birth, and the simplicity of a child coming to life,is compared to the elaborated description of the city, Diomira’s architectonicfeatures and decorations. The memory of birth.

Isidora:  Saint Isidora is Christiannun, one of the earliest fools of Christ. It is worth mentioning that Calvinowas a great devotee of the church. Isidora is a city of dreams, one that grabsyou and does not let you go. Contrary to Diomira, the architectonic features ofthis city are angelical like heaven, and the people are the ones that createthe atrocities in Isidora. It was a city that anybody would dream of, “old mensit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires arealready memories.” (PG.8). Nothing is done to change what happens here.

Dorothea: This city is full of patterns and numbers which are a vitalpart to the organization of it. “Four aluminum towers...seven gates…four greencanals...nine quarters...three hundred houses…seven hundred chimneys.”(PG.9)Due to the strict regimen of the city everybody collaborates with each other,through lending, borrowing or gifting. An industrially developed city whichwould be the desire an covet of any one.

Zaira: Is a city that can be interpreted as a river. By Marco Polo’sfirst descriptions of it “arcades’ curves, and zinc scales that covered theroof” (PG.10), but more than the physical aspects of this city is whatconstructed it and what we can see now. The city tells a story as the path leftby the river does. The problem is what gave shape to the city in the beginningdetermines most of what happens today in Zaira. The lines of the river arewritten in the hard drive of Zaira’s history, its memories.

Anastasia: This city is kind of an oasis; Polo tells us you will find itafter three days of enduring travel through the desert. Full of minerals itgives us the idea one can be resurrected in that place. Yet it is also thegarden of eve, and an apple. Knowing how wounded up you will be when you arrivehere; you will be received with commodities. These commodities will later turninto temptations, which will drag you down turning the city a living hell. “Foreight hours a day you work…your labor which gives form to desire takes fromdesire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you areonly its slave” (PG. 12)

   

Number Play

A strange and fantastic book, Invisible Cities, by the superb Italo Calvino is a dialogue between its only two characters: Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, the latter narrates the stories of the invisible cities to the first. In fact the book lacks any sort of plot line or beginning. Meaning you can actually read the book in which ever order you like and achieve a comprehensible story with different meanings each. 

In the prologue of the "first chapter" if it could be called so, Calvino sets us as part of the book, by referring to us as emperors conquering various territories. "In the lives of emperors there is a moment which follows pride...obscure kings that beseech our army’s protection...it is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin.” (PG. 5) Marco Polo will try to dialogue with us the whole book, implant his talks with Khan as information in our head.   

Through a cautious close reading we preformed in class we were able to understand the meaning of this prologue and the whole set up of the book. Calvino as said before gives us the prestige of emperors, with many territories. The emperors being us and the land we take over being the knowledge there is out there. The problem is “that the triumph over enemy sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing” (PG.5), the land you just acquired has already been known by another person yet they did not use it wisely. Upon that, the emperor that has just been kicked out in a few years will forget his land. And while you expand and “win” more knowledge you would leave the other things behind. Not having the time to appreciate each territory correctly.

Calvino also plays with the way his book is assembled. It was previously mentioned that you could read this book any way you liked to. Calvino is offering you the knowledge, the book. After the information is given to you it is your call on how you interpret it. There will be a different outcome from each path taken, and each person will receive a different message.

 Each of the fifty-five cities described in the book have a number. The way Calvino organized the book, the first chapter is the only one in which the chapter begins with the number one. Then continuously the number increases and then decreases back to one again and there are no number fives which are included in every chapter there forward(1,2,1,3,2,1,4,3,2,1). From the second chapter up to chapter eight all the chapters will begin with the number five and descend to number one (5,4,3,2,1). Number nine has a different pattern it decreases in an inverse way than chapter one did. Starting at five and finally reaching five again (5,4,3,2,5,4,3,5,4,5) strangely never having a one. I still have no comprehension of what role this number play plays in the book.

Lastly this book as I skim through it before I begin to read it, it seems as short stories of different cities, that might have nothing to do with each other. That we will have to see.