Invisible Cities

Calvino created many books that utterly defy description and evade simple laconic summaries. "Invisible Cities" provides the exemplary of all exemplaries for these traits. This book is to be experienced more than discussed or analyzed. Each reader will likely mine personally unique reflections and meanings from the multitudinous vignettes and themes. Though physically very thin it's actually about three miles thick with meaning. Reading it in one sitting gives the feeling of overeating, like some things ingested were not quite fully digested. This leaves a lingering feeling of regret that one may have eaten too quickly. Probably the best thing to do after reading "Invisible Cities" is to read it again soon. On a second reading, voluminous nuances begin to peep out from between the lines of text. Then read it again and again and again... every reading reveals something new. The writing, like all of Calvino's works in translation, is stunning and hypnotic. Most of the book contains second person descriptions of cities, real or imagined, past, present, or future. Discussions between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo bookend these one to three page narratives. The two famous personages often wax philosophical. Sometimes Kublai Khan accuses Marco Polo of lying, or laziness, or stubborness. Kublai Khan wants nothing more than to possess his empire, and he looks to Marco Polo's tales for assistance. But almost immediately something seems awry. The historical Marco Polo died around 1324, but the tales he spins include references to radios, parasols, oil refineries, airports, and other very twentieth century items. Something far juicier than historical fiction begins to unfold. Though the subject of the book encompasses much more than a mere reflection on cities, it manages to evoke much about their unique nature. Each city contains everything it was and everything it will be. A city contains perspectives, opinions, relationships, inhabitants, and exiles. Calvino pushes his theme almost to its limit. Section nine, the book's final section, becomes almost surreal but still manages to leave a lasting message. Some standout sections include: the description of the spider-web city supported by veins of ropes; the city where the visitor sees the faces of people he or she once knew in its inhabitants; the city formed by men who dreamt of a naked woman running through city streets; all of the passages are ultimately noteworthy, but some contain shocking beauty. Discernible patterns also weave through the sections and thier titles, and the table of contents itself reveals a pattern. Written between the lines of this amazing book is the ineffability of all being. Past, present, and future, when put under the microscope, can become incomprehensible and overwhelming. At the same time past, present, and future appear present in everything. "Invisible Cities" reflects this somewhat mind-bending characteristic of reality. Similar to many of the cities Marco Polo relates

The first book I read by Calvino was If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, and I thought it was brilliant. I am equally floored by Invisible Cities. I'm not sure you could call it a novel -- there is a sense of movement through the work but it isn't narrative movement, it's the movement of ideas, an unfolding of Calvino's ways of characterising the nature of cities. The work is broken up into meditations that rarely extend for more than two pages; each discusses a city along a theme, describing how that city instantiates or represents a certain universal property that all cities share in to some degree. The beauty of the work comes from the way Calvino traces these themes: the tension between the way things are and the way we see or describe them; the tension between disparity and unity, or similarity and difference; the tension between progress and decay; between monotony and beauty. Almost every meditation took my breath away with the breadth of imagery and ideas that Calvino manages to evoke from such sparse prose (once again, William Weaver proves to be an utterly brilliant translator; I'm pretty sure he's responsible for the best translations of Svevo, as well, amongst others). The idea of the book itself is one thing; the execution is another. I'm going to find it hard not to continue through his works one by one from here. The final quote runs (no chance of giving anything away):"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what we already have, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many; accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognise who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

Jorge Luis Borges once wrote that it is a sin to write a long book when the idea for it could be explained in a few pages. I don't entirely agree, and I doubt Italo Calvino did either, but from this book alone he certainly could have.The reason I say this is because Invisible Cities consists purely of ideas. There is no plot and only two major characters, who are really not characters so much as plot devices. (Perhaps not plot devices, since I just wrote that their is no plot, but I think you understand.) There is only a series of thoughts on perception, memory, time, and many other topics, explained through a series of descriptions of fantastical cities. Sometimes the meanings of the cities are clear, but most contain various degrees of enigmaticism.This book is short, but I don't recommend trying to read in one or a few days. It seems to work best if you read it a little at a time. My only real complaint with the book is that it seems to end arbitrarily rather than concluding. This is a brilliant book.

In this wonderful litle book, an imaginary Marco Polo tells an equally fictional Kublai Khan the story of his many travels through the Mogol Empire, and all the cities he has known. They both know it's all in Polo's brain, but who cares, the imaginary cities are so vivid, so visually possible, that the emperor keeps demanding more of them.Calvino really lets his imagination get high, to create the most bizarre, beautiful, horrible and crazy cities as any you yourself can imagine. Cities of all places, ages, shapes and peculiarities come to your mind. Calvino is really good at depicting impossible places, but also places that somehow remind you of real cities you've been to.A remarkable work of imagination, well written, this is the ideal book to read in a dreamy scenery, but also in one of these quasi-impossible cities we humans have created, the craziest ones, such as NY, LA, Tokyo, Mexico City, etc.

Once more, I have grown in my appreciation and respect for Calvino's works. He writes using precise words and never quits until he has portrayed an image in sentences. He is inventive, an original. This short novel has incredible power not for plot, but for characterization, imagery, and sheer force contained in the words.The characterization works like a photographic negative. He never tells us of Genghis Khan or Marco Polo; no descriptions or personality traits given. What he uses is their ideas and the things that they talk of to describe what kind of people they are. Thus, it is through their impressions on the template that I could tell what kind of characters they are. That is good, confident writing, I think.The imagery is powerful too. Calvino strives to make his cities visible in the imagination. This is one trait that I think will make him be read years and years from now. Take your time with this novel. In fact, I don't think that it is possible to even race through it. It's shortness is misleading, it is very dense and laden with vitality and deserves to be savored in enjoyment and not raced through in the reading. But if you can slow down and enjoy it, I think you will find it to be well worth the effort.