| Author: Italo Calvino | |
| Rating: 7.5 (Trinalor's Scale) | Reviewer: Trinalor |
| Genre: Fantasy | Publisher:Harcourt |
| Pages: 165 | Orig Pub Date: 1974 |
| Binding: Paperback | Cover Illus.: Shelton Walsmith |
FBS Quick Take
Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.
{opening line of Invisible Cities}
Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.
{opening line of Invisible Cities}
So, Marco Polo is entertaining the great Kublai Khan with tales of the many cities he has visited throughout the world. Aside from that basic premise, Invisible Cities (translated from the Italian by William Weaver) is a book with no discernable plot and two main characters who play no major roles. It is also written in the second person, present tense giving the feeling that you, the reader, are included in Marco’s very small, intimate audience.
I realized I had to free myself from the images which in the past had announced to me the things I sought; only then would I succeed in understanding the language of Hypatia.
As Polo comes to this realization while visiting the city of Hypatia, so, too, should the reader leave behind preconceived notions and stereotypes in order to better enjoy the accounts of Polo’s travels. Because Polo’s stories of these bizarre places are not marked so much by descriptions of their natural wonders, famous sites, native products, etc., as he explains here:
The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper's swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen's nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn; the tilt of a guttering and a cat's progress along it as he slips into the same window; the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared beyond the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering; the rips in the fish net and the three old men seated on the dock mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat usurper, who some say was the queen's illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.
A city is more than just its physical presence. It is the society it contains. It is not just its edifices, but the interactions of its people. Everything is connected; everything is related like the proverbial butterfly in the rain forest.
Each city offers some nugget of cultural insight that can be applied universally. Each city offers some observation on the human condition.
But, obscure or obvious as it might be, everything Marco displayed had the power of emblems, which, once seen, cannot be forgotten or confused.
A quote which describes my feelings on this book: alternating between unclear and clear but leaving an impression. Invisible Cities is a book best read in very small doses: no more than three or four cities at a time (which is easily done since each city is typically described in four pages or less.) To read more than that in one sitting causes the cities to run together making for rather repetitious and monotonous reading. But perhaps this is intentional?
Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene.
Perhaps. I think so.
FantasyBookSpot - fantasy book reviews and fantasy book author interviews
Buy it now at Amazon! | View/Post Comments(6)
Buy it now at Amazon! | View/Post Comments(6)
