By Italo Calvino Invisible Cities (New Ed) [Paperback]

Calvino uses evocotive poetic language to construct a magical world in this book. The short vignette chapters can be read and reread in or out of order. I use this book to refreshed the way I see my own everyday world, to transform it.

Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" is a most beautifully written story; the person who did the translation did a remarkable job. But there it ends for me. The descriptive narrative for each [mythical] city starts to sound the same after a while. It is not a "spell-binding" book; in fact, I'm still reading it. The language is beautiful, the story dull. I have not been transported.

It was a magnificent production. The Union Station with its everyday people and we the audience milling among them along with the actors and dancers added a dimension I have never experienced before. The music and the singing was superb and the dancers electrifying. I am so glad I took the train from Culver City to see it. I look forward to more such operas.

This review is really about the audiobook available via whisper sync. I would not recommend it. Hard to even know what I think of the book (I think I liked it). The audiobook really tainted my experience.

While tales told by Marco Polo to his great master should have been compelling, I felt as if I had to drag myself from one to the next. Calvino just never caught my interest in the story line, even though I had expected to enjoy it a great deal.

This is an interesting book to read because of the descriptive and 'flowery' language. I had to buy it for a Design Culture class because the teacher has us reading and answering test questions on the book.

This review is really about the audiobook available via whisper sync. I would not recommend it. Hard to even know what I think of the book (I think I liked it). The audiobook really tainted my experience.

While tales told by Marco Polo to his great master should have been compelling, I felt as if I had to drag myself from one to the next. Calvino just never caught my interest in the story line, even though I had expected to enjoy it a great deal.

This is an interesting book to read because of the descriptive and 'flowery' language. I had to buy it for a Design Culture class because the teacher has us reading and answering test questions on the book.

Posed as a dialog between Marco Polo and Genghis Khan, it abandons that era to speak of later inventions in a rambling daydream of imagined cityscapes. Don't bother with this. It gives no insights, just an annoying tangle of words.

I loved Invisible Cities so much that after I finished the audio version, I purchased a print copy for my coffee table and bought copies for some of my friends.

Invisible Cities is certainly not a book to read for plot, and I wouldn’t recommend reading it straight through, either. I’d read the individual city “stories” as short meditations that are metaphors for life, memory, travel, love, and other aspects of the human experience and human nature.
Every city, every image, is a metaphor and readers are likely to take away different interpretations.

Invisible Cities is highly imaginative and philosophical with an elaborate, even mathematical structure. I admired everything about it and now I want to go read it again. The audio version is narrated by John Lee, who is wonderful.

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature

The book includes Marco Polo's descriptions to Kublai Khan of faraway places (though it's unclear if these parts are fictional, true, or fiction-based-on-truth). It's poetic, heart-warming, and soul moving. There is more to be felt in these short, simple descriptions of settings than many authors convey or achieve with entire novels. I urge any writer struggling with settings to study this book. The philosophy included in these pages is on par with Socrates.

Modern descriptions are woven in with the ancient ones. The underground trains of Zirma are mentioned, when trains did not exist until 500 years after Marco Polo. That is the first clue that this book means to transcend time, to travel back and forth through it without regard. Sophronia has a rollercoaster, carousel, Ferris wheel, motorcycles, and factories — all of which were, obviously, never encountered by Marco Polo. Leonia, a city with refrigerators, radio, toothpaste, and light bulbs— is a city that sounds like the whole of America.

I find myself wishing there was a videogame with the objectives of building and maintaining the cites described in this book. Something along the lines of Sid Meier's Civilization series, or the Anno games, or even another version of The Sims and Sim City would be wonderful to bring this book to life.

So apparently I read this book like three years ago... While I recall having started it, I do not recall finishing it. I recall being annoyed by the meandering storyline and seeming lack of destination. I have a difficult time valuing the journey over, or even as much as, the destination, so this book, I thought, was not for me.

Having just finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler last night and not yet having received my next the store package, I decided to revisit this one. I'm glad that I did. I am definitely in a different place right now, and the lessons learned from the previous novel definitely combined to make this an entirely different and enjoyable experience. "It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear." Perhaps that is my biggest takeaway this time.

I can't say there was a huge payoff at the end this time... I can't say that I really fully learned anything except to continue to value a story for when and where it exists without needing something grander to lend it credence. I had to become a listener here... not looking for a meaning but just enjoying the tales being related by someone with experiences vastly different from my own. Calvino just let his imagination run wild. I felt like every description was the beginning (or end) of a much larger and more interesting story... but somehow was still able to let each one come into existence and quickly fade away without feeling cheated. Especially today when we all want sequels and prequels and behind-the-scenes... it became refreshing to just take these glimpses into societies that will never exist. Or have always existed.

I would find it difficult to really recommend this to anyone as I feel like it definitely requires a particular state of mind to allow one's self to become immersed in and appreciate such a string of seemingly unrelated tales. If your ears are ready to hear, however, then this is an excellent exercise in listening.

If you're looking for light reading, something to unwind with after a tough day, I'd recommend moving on. On its surface, the novel is little more than a long conversation between two men about an empire, which may or may not exist as described. If you're someone who just likes to read for the fun of the plot, that plot isn't going to do much for you. This isn't the type of novel where the plot hooks you. There really isn't a plot. In a certain way, there really aren't characters, at least not in a conventional way. When you read this, you've got to think and you've got to be open to tangents. The novel does discuss many interesting topics and themes having to do with memory and perception and understanding, but you've got to let Calvino's descriptions of the cities guide your mind off on these tangents. If you focus too hard, as I found myself doing a few times, it does get dull. It's a matter of relaxing. It's like looking at a painting. Sure, you can see it and admire it for pretty picture, but you're really meant to feel something, to go somewhere inside yourself to make meaning. You have to do the same thing here.

"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening..."

So writes Italo Calvino, in one of the more ethereal experimental books he wrote. While not as weird as a book made up of tarot card adventures, "Invisible Cities" is a story that defies easy classification -- it's soft, dreamlike narrative in which one man tells another about the magical cities he's seen. Or, possibly, has not seen.

The famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo arrives in the empire of Kublai Khan, and the two men become friends. In the evenings, Marco tells the Khan of many fabulous cities -- the grey metal and stone Fedora, the stilted Zenobia, the haunted moonlit Zobeide, the sensual and bejeweled Anastasia, the cloud-straddling Baucis, the watery Esmeralda, a city of dead people known as Adelma, the dirt-choked Argia, the hazy rose-tinted Irene, and many others.

"Invisible Cities" isn't really a story so much as a series of beautiful pictures-in-prose. It's like we're watching Calvino paint us portraits of his fantasy cities with his words -- and except for Kublai Khan and Marco Polo occasionally conversing about trade, travel or chess, there is no actual plot here. It's just gorgeous portraits of imaginary cities.

And therein lies its charm. Calvino came up with dozens of fantastical cities in here. Few if any of them could actually exist, but they are so suffused with sensual beauty ("its villas all of glass like aquariums where the shadows of dancing girls with silvery scales swim...") and darkness ("All corpses, dried in such a way that the skeleton remains sheathed in yellow skin, are carried down there, to continue their former activities...") that you don't care.

Instead, Calvino comes up with strange, weird and illogical ideas, such as a city with ho actual buildings, but lots of plumbing. There are cities of the dead and the unborn; cities of the sea, the air, the earth and the sunrise; cities where everyone is a stranger and steampunk cities rusted into oblivion. It's like he's opened a hundred doors to eerie other worlds, and let us take a single picture of each before the doors close.

"Invisible Cities" is not a book for people who like plot -- instead, it's a chance to immerse yourself in Italo Calvino's magical language and imagination.

I dearly love these tiny one page stories . these incredibly imaginative images of impossible cities. the city completely underground. the city so high in the sky the only thing one could see was the poles that held it up. etc etc I read them over and over. before I go to bed

Is there anywhere more Calvino stories like this, I have bought two other books and found them self indulgent, verbose and much less interesting.

anything remotely like this?

anyone?

"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening..."

So writes Italo Calvino, in one of the more ethereal experimental books he wrote. While not as weird as a book made up of tarot card adventures, "Invisible Cities" is a story that defies easy classification -- it's soft, dreamlike narrative in which one man tells another about the magical cities he's seen. Or, possibly, has not seen.

The famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo arrives in the empire of Kublai Khan, and the two men become friends. In the evenings, Marco tells the Khan of many fabulous cities -- the grey metal and stone Fedora, the stilted Zenobia, the haunted moonlit Zobeide, the sensual and bejeweled Anastasia, the cloud-straddling Baucis, the watery Esmeralda, a city of dead people known as Adelma, the dirt-choked Argia, the hazy rose-tinted Irene, and many others.

"Invisible Cities" isn't really a story so much as a series of beautiful pictures-in-prose. It's like we're watching Calvino paint us portraits of his fantasy cities with his words -- and except for Kublai Khan and Marco Polo occasionally conversing about trade, travel or chess, there is no actual plot here. It's just gorgeous portraits of imaginary cities.

And therein lies its charm. Calvino came up with dozens of fantastical cities in here. Few if any of them could actually exist, but they are so suffused with sensual beauty ("its villas all of glass like aquariums where the shadows of dancing girls with silvery scales swim...") and darkness ("All corpses, dried in such a way that the skeleton remains sheathed in yellow skin, are carried down there, to continue their former activities...") that you don't care.

Instead, Calvino comes up with strange, weird and illogical ideas, such as a city with ho actual buildings, but lots of plumbing. There are cities of the dead and the unborn; cities of the sea, the air, the earth and the sunrise; cities where everyone is a stranger and steampunk cities rusted into oblivion. It's like he's opened a hundred doors to eerie other worlds, and let us take a single picture of each before the doors close.

"Invisible Cities" is not a book for people who like plot -- instead, it's a chance to immerse yourself in Italo Calvino's magical language and imagination.

This book was recommended to me by a fellow traveler, and I will be in his debt for quite awhile!

The back cover of my edition said the only bad part of this book was having to describe it to another person. They are absolutely right. The short description is that Marco Polo is describing different cities to a foreigner emperor. As it turns out, they are all different characterizations of his home town in Venice.

Each description is only a page or two long. Any longer however and you would get bogged down in the language. As the descriptions come in small amounts, the reader is able to absorb the intricacies of this version of Venice before moving onto the next.

What I really loved about the novel though was the commonalities about cities and structure which was touched upon throughout. Like people, there is both a uniqueness and universality to places. While I might step into a city and feel like it's home, or I've been there before, the city is still unique in it's buildings or stores or language or layout. Yet, there is something deeper which resonates within each of us.

One can interpret the different passages in a number of different ways, and I suspect that when I reread the novel, I will get a different interpretation as well. I simply loved how beautifully it was written, and the way it made me think.Thus, I highly recommend this novel for the reader that wants a bit more than the usual fanfare.

I only just discovered Calvino's writing, and now I need more of it.

At the exterior, Invisible Cities forms a conversation between Marco Polo and the Chinese emperor, a travelogue of sorts, describing the wonders that Polo has seen. Each section of the book starts with a brief interlude that continues the conversation, then presents a handful of city descriptions, a page or two each. Instead of an atlas, though, think of this more as an urban form of ancient bestiary, filled with fabulous and improbable descriptions of things that never were and never could be - at least not when the descriptions are taken at their most literal. But, whatever their failings in plain hard fact, each of those mythical beasts embodied some blend of the teller's experience, aspirations, fears, and dreams, sometimes grown from a seed of reality.

That's how Calvino describes the city - or, it turns out, The City. Each vignette seemingly describes a different locale with its own unique geography, architecture, and customs. It could equally well describe the speaker's many experiences of his own home: the riches, the poverty, the bustle, the solitude, the comforts, the senses of loss and alienation. Through that, Calvino reminds the reader that no one description can be completely and exclusively true, and invites the reader to tease out and characterize the many conflicting and interlocking truths in any experience - and, by extension, the conflicting and interlocking truths evoked by different observers.

There's one thing I know I never fully grasped in this book - perhaps something utterly insignificant, perhaps not. The table of contents offers subtleties in numbering and characterization of city descriptions for which I never found meaning. Perhaps that will come clear (or at least clearer) on some future reading. There's sure to be at least one, sooner or later.

-- wiredweird

Invisible Cities is neither a traditional novel, nor is it simply a collection of short stories. Instead, is a hybrid - a series of descriptions of impossible or magical cities is held together by a fictional conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. Marco Polo gives fantastical descriptions of the cities he's visited: a city entirely underground, a city suspended by ropes over an abyss, a city that serves as a museum to all the possible alternate versions of itself. As Polo tells his stories to the Khan, the reader begins to recognize a common unifying theme to the descriptions. Although the work is highly academic, I believe it can be enjoyed on multiple levels. The descriptions of the cities are enjoyable both in their literal sense and for the metaphors that they evoke. I think the depth of analysis will depend on each individual reader, but one doesn't need to understand each nuisance to derive enjoyment from this work. Overall, this book takes a unique approach to illuminating both historical and modern urban life and society.

I first showed interest in Italo Calvino when I saw him compared to a favorite author of mine, JORGE LUIS BORGES.

After reading this book, I can clearly see similarities between the two. But let's not forget one fact: Borges came first. Therefore, much of what I read in this book was nothing new.

In particular, I immediately recognized the layout of INVISIBLE CITIES as being loosely modeled off of Borges' BOOK OF IMAGINARY BEINGS. In the latter work, Borges wrote short but sweet histories of the many different fantasy creatures in the world. In this book, also using a mere page or two, Calvino explores the many different types of cities, which all happen to be the same one, just approached from different directions.

Where Calvino puts his own personal twist on this formula is by adding some narrative and dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. Even with this addition, this book does not read like a traditional story. But there is much in the way of thought-provoking passages and imaginative imagery. It was when my mind could really visualize these possible cities, when I was forced to stop and ask myself questions, that I felt the book worked.

However, Calvino also made a few decisions in his writing that damage the consistency of his work. For example, the scenes between Khan and Polo are clearly rooted in ancient history. So are most of the city-descriptions. But then out of left-field he'll come along and describe a city with airplanes, pistons, and hydraulics with no immediate explanation for this sudden change in technology and time.
Going back to the Khan and Polo scenes, most of them are formatted like a regular novel. But then starting around page 100, Calvino ditches that format for one that looks more suited for a play . . . then switches back and forth between the two a couple times without any explanation.

In my opinion, if it weren't for the Khan and Polo scenes, this book could have easily been called THE BOOK OF IMAGINARY CITIES, where a reader could open to a page at random and enjoy the sometimes odd and imaginative ways of viewing cities. This is how Borges himself wanted one to read his IMAGINARY BEINGS book.
However, the very existence of the Khan and Polo scenes forces one to read this from cover to cover like most other books.

There are moments of brilliance, statements that may put your critical thinking-cap into high-gear but I honestly don't think this book turned out as good as it could have.

Eschewing all conventional literary forms, Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" is a series of short sketches of imaginary cities visited by the mercurial explorer Marco Polo, who tells his tales to Kublai Khan, the saturnine Mongol emperor who is nearing the end of his triumphant days. But this is a work of anachronistic fantasy, and it soon becomes apparent that the cities have nothing to do with the 13th century or the Mongol empire, but exist in all times and places, or only in the mind.
The roughly fifty cities that Marco Polo describes are of such wild variety and curious construction, one has to wonder where Calvino gets his inspiration (aside from the obvious influence of Borges). Marco Polo tells of Dorothea, a city that is divided like a tic-tac-toe board by four intersecting canals; Despina, a city that appears as a ship to a traveler approaching by camel, and a camel to a traveler approaching by ship; the eerily surreal Armilla, consisting of nothing but water pipes ending in plumbing fixtures; Olinda, a city which blossoms like a flower in concentric circles, evoking visions of self-generating fractals.
Some of the cities seem to symbolize concepts that apply to the real world. Especially portentous is the "spider-web" city of Octavia, which hangs from a rope suspended between two mountain precipices; its inhabitants are less uncertain of their future than those of other cities because they at least *know* that someday the rope will break. And Perinthia, a city that was designed under celestial guidance but whose inhabitants have turned out grotesque, offers ironic commentary on science mixing with religion.
Encompassing the sights, sounds, aromas, and sentiments of a world of human experience, "Invisible Cities" is a feast for the senses, beautifully penned by one of the truly great fabulists of the twentieth century.

Invisible Cities is, at its most basic, a constant dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan as Polo recounts his journeys throughout the lands and describes the cities that the Khan will never see himself. At its most complex, this book is about the make-up of our own lives, the level of insight wrapped around the fantastic cities is simply amazing.
A recurring theme through the novel is that of the sadness associated with life, and the general melancholy awareness that afflicts any place. Octavia, the spider-web city, is a city hanging between two mountains, existing entirely through a system of webbing and nets. The inhabitants, Marco Polo writes, do not live in fear of their existence like other city-dwellers, for they know that the netting will only last so long. Almost every city carries with it a similar lesson, a similar warning, a similar metaphor. None of the cities are truly happy, their single exception serving not to highlight their uniqueness, but to instead show that where they are not strong, they are weak.
Here, to show an example of the sheer originality and wonder of these cities, are some examples:
A city replicated many times, and when the occupants become disillusioned with their jobs and wives, they all simply get up and move to the next city to take up new occupations, new wives or husbands and new lives, and the cycle begins anew, but the cit, of all the invisible cities, remains always the same. A city where there is nothing but the water plumbing making up the dwellings, and naked women bathe in bathtubs and showers suspended in the air by nothing but their piping's.
To me, the point of this book was to highlight a good or a bad side to human life and embody this within a particular city. Then, each aspect can be examined and shown to be lacking, or sufficient, based entirely on its own merits. No single city could truly exist, but instead each aspect of the cities exist within those we live in today, and by isolating and examining these we can perhaps make our own lives - and the lives of others - better for it. The constant dialogues between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo serve only to reinforce this belief; the two men often speaking at each other in metaphors and life-lessons. In particular, the city of Eusapia is amazing, I won't describe it though, I'll just say that its description alone is worth the price of admission.
This book gets my absolute highest recommendation.

For many people Invisible Cities is their favorite Calvino novel. While it is not quite mine (I prefer If on a Winter's Night a Traveller and The Baron in the Trees) no one would deny this book's singular beauty and charm. Marco Polo and Kublai Khan discuss a host of cities, which are in fact all just one city. In a series of exquisite tales, Calvino tells of Cities and memory, Cites and desire, Cities and signs, Thin cities, Trading Cities, Cities and Eyes, Cities and Names, Cities and the Dead, Cities and the Sky, Continuous Cities, Hidden Cities, all arranged in such a manner as to remind one of Pascal and Fibonnaci.
Calvino's ingenuity is striking. There is the memory city of Isidora, the dreamed off city of youthful passion and pleasure which is only encountered by the old who remember it. There is the stilt city of Thin Zenobia. There is the city of Eusapia who made beneath it an underground necropolis for its dead who in turn has so influenced the surface that one can no longer tell who is alive or dead. There is the continous city of Leonia which throws out everything each day and replaces it with the completely new. I think my favorite is the hidden city of Theodora, which after successfully exterminating all the vermin, found itself plagued with sphinxes, unicorns, hydras and basilisks. An unforgettable book.

I took a college class recently which featured this book. I found the concept behind this book original, clever, and intelligent. A number of reviewers here have used the word "pretentious," but I don't see it as such at all. I will warn you now however, that if you are looking for a plot, you won't find one in this book. But the story that nevertheless unfolds in you mind, is indescribable.
The backdrop for the story is an imaginary Marco Polo telling an eqully imaginary Kublai Kahn about all of the wondrous cities he has visited in his travels across the known world... but what the reader gets is far from "known." Instead, through Polo's vivid descriptions, Calvino takes you on a journey through a number of mythical cities, each more fantastic and surreal than the last. Slowly the reader comes to understand that the cities Polo describes, do not per-se exist in reality, but in his imagination and dreams. Time, we find, has no meaning to these characters who we find later are as mythical as the cities that they describe.
In summary, Calvino tells a hypnotic and poetic story with his imaginative depictions of these fantasy cities. The book is pure imagination, with no plot to get in the way. It will give your imagination a well-needed workout. It is different than your average novel, and it will certainly have an acquired taste to it, but if you are willing to try, you will not be disappointed. If you enjoy this book, I would also recommend Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams," which is similar in style, just as imaginative, and twice as good!

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 to Kublai Khan, the book itself is a work of imagination that attempts to envelop the past, present, and future with the analogy of cities and their physical and metaphysical stratifications. It also points out that we all need anchors in this puzzling and fuzzy infinity. Marco Polo reveals his. Does Kublai Khan? Finishing the book will leave readers with a sense that something monumental has occurred, but words won't do justice to this feeling. One will know that "Invisible Cities" stands as an amazing literary achievement, and one of Calvino's finest.

If you are looking for a novel that goes something like Hero has a problem made worse by the villain and they have conflict and stuff happens leading to a climax and mostly everything is resolved in the end, then Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is not for you.

But if you are looking for a different kind of book, then Invisible Cities is worth a try.

The story (if you can call it that) centers on Marco Polo telling Kublai Khan of the cities he has seen on his travels. As the novel progresses, it's not clear whether Marco Polo actually saw the cities, if he's making it all up, or even if Kublai Khan believes any of what he's hearing or not.

Marco Polo describes fantastic cities, painting a vivid portrait in just a page or two. One sits on stilts, one's boundaries are ever-shifting boundaries, one is simply pipes and plumbing with no walls or roofs. Another is described as a carpet with twisting patterns which are really a map of the city. Everyone sees it differently, depending on what twists of fate have come into their lives. Following that theme, another city is built on a dream of chasing a woman through a town, another uses the stars as its blueprint.

What makes this book so enjoyable is the sheer gorgeousness of the writing. The descriptions of the cities are almost like prose poems. There is lush detail ("the river green with crocodiles"), or this sentence:

"And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs at seeing a dog that has jumped on a shed to bite into a piece of polenta dropped by a stonemason who has shouted from the top of the scaffolding, "Darling, let me dip into it," to a young serving maid who holds up a dish of ragout under the pergola, happy to serve it to the umbrella-maker who is celebrating a successful transaction, a white lace parasol bought to display at the races by a great lady in love with an officer who has smiled at her taking the last jump, happy man, and still happier his horse, flying over the obstacles, seeing a francolin flying in the sky, happy bird freed from its cage by a painter happy at being painted it feather by feather, speckled with red and yellow ..."

Another memorable city waged war on fleas and termites, and various species of mutant rats, not suspecting that it was threatened by monsters: sphinxes, griffons, dragons, basilisks and more, all seeking to possess the city. This brought to my mind the image of our own society, obsessed with trivia, ignoring the real issues that threaten our way of life.

This, I think, is the key to the book: the images it creates in our minds. Invisible Cities isn't a quick read, but one to be savored. I admit, there were some passages I read three or four times and still didn't get. Others were so vivid, like the one quoted above, I could see the crowds in the streets, individuals living their lives, acting and reacting to each other. This is a book that invites you to read between the lines and form your own images.

Calvino's intent may have been summarized by Marco Polo. "`I speak and speak,' Marco says, `but the listener retains only the words he is expecting...It is not the voice that commands the story, it is the ear.'"

Calvino's INVISIBLE CITIES is very original in concept and execution. A fictional Marco Polo tells a fictional Kublai Khan about the cities he has visited in his travels, all having female names and all having fantastically unique and in many cases, disturbing qualities. During the course of his recollections, Kublai and Polo digress on various topics relating to those cities, the state of Kublai's empire, and the symbolic meaning of it all.

The effect is quite hypnotic, as each city in turn, through physical descriptions of it's architecture and culture presents a unique perspective on mankind. Calvino is saying things about modern as well as ancient civilization. Each city is a city of the mind..a city everyone knows, has known, or will know.

This book is unique and thought provoking, but I did find it a bit repetitive in style. It kind of droned on. That's my only criticism.

I have only recently discovered the fantasies of Italo Calvino (1923--1984). Wow! What a wonderful imagination! I will review more of his books as I finish them, but I will start with _Invisible Cities_ (1972). It would seem to be fairly loose and episodic in nature at first glance. The emperor Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo sit in a garden and converse. Young Marco tells of fabulous cities that he has seen (or might have seen). On page 43, Marco gently chides the Khan, telling him: "Sir, your mind has been wandering. This is precisely the city I was telling you about when you interrupted me". There is the suggestion that several of these cities may be one... or that all may be one. But I don't think so. The fifty-five cities described here are very individual places.

Some are places of particular signs:

Finally the journey leads to the city of Tamara. You penetrate it along streets thick with signboards jutting from the walls. The eye does not things but images of things that mean other things: pincers point out the tooth-drawer's house; a tankerd, the tavern; halberds, the barracks; scales, the grocers. Statues and shields depict lions, dolphins, towers, stars: a sign that something-- who knows what?-- has as its sign a lion or a dolphin or a tower or a star. (13)

Some cities were founded on desire:

They tell this tale of [Zobeiide's] foundation: men of various nations had an identical dream. They saw a woman running through an unknown city; she was seen from behind with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of pursuing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her. After the dream, they set out in search of that city... (45)

Or, like the city of Dorothea, you may say say that desire is now imbedded in some cities:

And bearing in mind that the nubile girls of each quarter marry youths of other quarters and their parents exchange the goods that each family holds in monopoly-- bergamot, sturgeon roe, astrolabes, amethysts-- you can then work from these facts until you learn everything you wish about the city in the past, present, and future. (9)

Some cities play with your memory:

Zora has the quality of remaining in your memory point by point, in its sucession of streets, of houses along the streets, and of doors and windows in the houses, though nothing in them possesses a special beauty or rarity. Zora's secret lies in the way your gaze runs over patterns following one another as in a musical score where not a note can be altered or displaced. (15)

Some cities are notable for their architecture, from the sparse:

The fact remains that [Armilla] has no walls, no ceilings, no floors: it has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be: a forest of pipes that end in taps, showers, spouts overflows. Against the sky a lavabo's white stands out or a bathtub, or some other porcelain... (49)

...to the aquatic: In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and intersect each other. To go from one place to another you have to always the choice between land or boat: and the shortest point between two points in Esmerelda is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous option routes, the ways that open to each passerby are never two, but many... (88)

... to the organic:

Orlinda is certainly not the only city that grows in concentric circles, like tree trunks which each year add one more ring. But in other cities there remains in the center, the old narrow girdle of the walls from which the withered spires rise, the towers, the tiled roofs, the domes, while the new quarters sprawl around them like a loosened belt. Not Orlinda: the old walls expand bearing the old quarters with them, enlarged, but maintaining their proportions on a broader horizon at the edges of the city; they surround the slightly newer quarters... (129)

I said earlier that the book seems to be loosely episodic. But a closer look at the book reveals that there is a very careful structure to it. There are nine chapters. Chapters one and nine contain ten descriptions of cities.. Chapters two through eight contain five descriptions of cities. Each chapter contains a dialogue between the Great Khan and Marco and the end. There are several other dialogues scattered about in an irregular manner in the chapter interiors. The dialogues themselves contain fascinations and contradictions. I will note only one example here:

"Your cities do not exist." [says Kublai Khan.]"Perhaps they have never existed. It is sure they will never exist again. Why do you amuse yourself with consolatory fables? I know well that my empire is rotting like a corpse in a swamp, whose contagion infects the crows that peck at it as well as the bamboo that grows, fertilized by its humors. Why not speak to me of this? Why do you lie to the emperor of the Tartars, foreigner?" (59)

But the Khan will also say: "And yet I know...that my empire is made of the stuff of crystals, its molecules arranged in a perfect pattern. Amid the surge of the elements, a splendid hard diamond takes shape, an immense, faceted, transparent mountain. Why do your travel impressions stop at disappointing appearances, never catching this implacable process? Why do you linger over inessential melancholies? Why do you hide from your emperor the grandeur of his destiny?" (60)

Can we find some patterns in this diversity? Let us start with the trivial. The book is filled with anachronisms. Cities contain trains, petrolium refineries, manhole covers, cable cars, shooting galleries, and other items not known in Marco Polo's time. For that matter, the historical Kubla Khan would probably never speak of molecules and elements. But then, we are dealing with a philosophical as well as a poetical novel.

What does the novel tell us about the nature of reality? Are the cities real or imaginary? Is the Kahn's empire rotting away, or is it enduring like a diamond mountain? Or is it like something else altogether? I think that Calvino means for us to see that the search for truth is a complex task, that truth is not a simple-minded affair. But I think that he also means for us to see that the quest for truth is not a meaningless quest, either. There may indeed be some point to sipping tea in a garden and talking about cities that might-have-been.

Though exceedingly short (166 pages), Invisible Cities by the author Italo Calvino is so densely constructed that it takes just as long, if not longer to understand, much less even finish the book than it would normally with a three hundred page novel. Indeed, after finishing Calvino's work I'm convinced I'll have to read it again just to even be convinced that I even read it in the first place.

But I think that sentiment speaks somewhat to the essence of the work itself. Briefly stated, Calvino's work is based around the visitations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, specifically their time spent in conversation about the cities Polo has traveled between in the great Khan's empire. The Khan, you understand, needs his amusement.

But as we progress through each of Polo's travels, we are increasingly forced to consider whether Polo is giving us the whole story, whether he actually has been to the distant places he so ably illustrates, whether they even exist at all. Fascinating is the interplay between Kublai Khan and Polo; was Calvino creating a dialogue among historical equals, or was Polo dangling a metaphorical carrot before the flummoxed Khan in an attempt to be clever or save his own skin?

Calvino, sadly no longer among us, equally confounds with his imagery in questioning just what exactly constitutes a city. His writing definitely fits the classification of fabulist lit, similar to magical realism, in which surreality takes center stage. It is a grand labyrinth, a philosophical conundrum that Calvino so artfully evokes.

I had never read any Calvino before this spring and loved If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Calvino writes like a more patient Borges, exploring the passages one at a time branching off the main cave gallery. In this breathtakingly elegant work, Calvino shows us cities rife with contradiction, told by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, with dialogues bookending the city descriptions. The short, meditative reflections on imagined cities gives the book a nice cadence, a postcard-view of the city, usually with its photo-negative or reflection or inversion presented afterwards. Calvino is clearly a master at this type of wordsmanship, while remaining true to his genuine emotion of decline, loss and heartbreak. At one point, the Khan asks Polo about the city of his birth, Venice: "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little." (87) Most of the stories focus on the various perceptions of cities which differ depending upon how one comes to the city, which part is glimpsed first, whether one grows up in the city or merely travels through it. Overall, a wonderful collection of descriptions, a jewelry-box of imagined delights, a phantasmagoria.

Calvino takes different aspects of human nature, urban planning, fears and dreams, or existence itself, and builds an entire city on the foundation of that idea. These are the cities Marco Polo describes to the emperor, Kublai Khan.

There's a lot of cities described here (all with women's names). At first I found them whimsical and without much gravity, but as the book progressed, the descriptions seemed to take a more substantive turn--sometimes going dark, sometimes curious. I found I liked the book more and more the deeper I read.

This is quite possibly the most striking novel I've had the pleasure of reading in the last few years. Calvino beautifully spins a tale of an imaginary encounter between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, in which Polo describes all the cities of his long travels. Calvino's exquisite prose slowly reveals cities beyond imagination to the reader, all the while weaving subtle currents of longing and regret into the fabric of his tale. The novel shines magnificently as a study and examination of our strange relationship with memory. As Polo tells Khan, "It is not the voice that tells the story, but the ear." As Calvino also notes, the best way to really maintain and preserve our memories is to leave them be. Only in this way can we avoid the temptation of returning to them and likely distorting and warping them from their original state. As Calvino skillfully reveals the slow and hidden crumbling of our memories, you'll find yourself hypnotized and drawn into the amazing world he's created. Please do yourself a favor and buy a copy of this book NOW.

Calvino is well-known for stretching the form of the novel, and Invisible Cities is certainly innovative in this respect. Somewhat in the style of '1001 Nights', the reader is offered a series of one page descriptions of the cities Marco Polo has visited on his travels. Interspersed with this are conversations between Polo and his patron, Kublai Khan. The Khan has not seen these places because his empire is simply too big. In this sense the cities are invisible. However, it becomes increasingly likely that Marco Polo hasn't seen them either. Is he describing nothing but different facets of his home town, Venice - or is he making the whole thing up?
Wherever the truth may lie, each city Polo describes is simultaneously fantastic and true. Each page captures the magical reality of urban life, in a way that no 'realist' account ever could. Not only is this a great novel, it is a novel all town planners and architects should be forced to read. Calvino reminds us that we will only ever live in cities as grand as our imaginations. What we need is to imagine more vividly.

In this slight book I found poetry, philosophical discourse, the stakes to a game of chess, and one of the finest last lines to a novel: "...seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space." A beautiful affirmation of humanity! This novel abounds with thoughtful and deep-inside-wrenching remarks, interlaced with poetic descriptions of countless imaginary cities that live and breath the characteristics of the all-too-real cities of the world today. The progression of city-experiences in this novel reminded me a little of the snapshot scenarios in Calvino's Marcovaldo. BUT, this book is still completely different! This book spurred my own imagination as Marco Polo's and Kublai Kahn's are intertwined within the covers. A wonder at many different levels and will be added to the very short list of books that I re-read every few years.

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.

Perhaps one of the oddest things about the reception of "Invisible Cities" is that it was a finalist for a Nebula Award. Although mathematics and architecture figure prominently, the book really isn't science fiction, and while it is certainly fanciful, it's a stretch to call this meditation a fantasy novel. Instead, Marco Polo's descriptions of 55 imaginary cities are clever, whimsical prose poems, mixing brainy puns and shrewd aphorisms. Calvino constructs cities the way Poe assembles dreams; "Invisible Cities" is the full-length work Borges never wrote.

The comparison to Borges is instructive, because what works in the short form begins to show signs of strain in this novella. Calvino sprinkles bons mots and truisms liberally amongst the tightly structured chapters (whose interwoven, enumerated headings might build, some readers argue, a sine wave or a skyline or something meaningful). Reading the book is to waver back and forth between admiring the clever wordplay and recognizing its cynical candor: "The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea." "There is no language without deceit." A city made entirely of pipes; a city divided for the dead, the living, the unborn; a city whose trash expands outward, trapping its citizens within; a city that looks just like the city you just left; a city that exists only in old postcards depicting a different city that never really existed--you'll recognize aspects of every city in each of these cities, or (more precisely) you'll recognize Venice.

Quite frankly, this isn't my thing; although parts made me laugh and parts made me think, I found "Invisible Cities" as repetitive and cute as it is innovative and profound, its substance a slave to its structure, its philosophy more dimestore than rigorous. (The metafiction of "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" and the allegory of "The Baron in the Trees" are more to my liking.) But this book will certainly gratify readers who long for fiction that aspires to Emersonian grandeur or who would prefer something more expansive than the bite-sized sketches offered by Borges.

Calvino is wonderful, and Invisible Cities is representative of his brilliance. Although not my favorite of his works, it is artfully crafted and beautifully executed. It is neither a novel nor a poem, but instead more of a "prose poem," if such a thing may truly exist. And in fact, it is not just one poem, but many: each one representing another feature of a single cosmopolis. His images flee from the limited grounding of physical description and instead float loftily in the realm of ideas and imagination. Because of this, Invisible Cities may be best understood as a demonstration of the artist's imagination, since each description--each "city"--is like an abstract painting.

Although I enjoyed this text, I found it difficult at times to follow. Calvino is clearly far more intelligent and crafty than I am, so I take the blame. However, take this as a warning for those of you who may be similar to me (better with prose than with poetry). Nonetheless, his images can be appreciated if not fully comprehended.

I highly recommend this text if for nothing else than being able to catch a glimpse of what it looks like when a brilliant man holds a paintbrush with his imagination.

"Calvino is just one of those writers that make me think to myself, "Yes! That's exactly how I feel!" at every phrase. "Oh, jeepers! Italo and I are, like, twin souls! We're exactly the same!" I'm sitting here furiously writing down quotes into my little journal and find out I'm just rewriting the whole novel."

Read the rest of the review (and then some) over here:

http://litbeetle.com/2013/06/04/on-calvinos-invisible-cities-and-relocation-to-a-newold-town/

Calvino is an excellent writer who takes the reader on a nutritious, recursive exploration of self by ocular observation amidst the bottomless variations of desire, indulgence and abstinence... with imperious circumspection. He writes like Stanley Kubrick directs.

Invisible Cities is a timeless masterpiece of intellectual, romantic and political irony. Simply put, this is a story that spans a chronicle of set narratives in the ancient oral tradition. This fictional narration of wondrous and fantastical adventures among cities of yon and gone are conveyed as seen through the eyes of Marco Polo and retold as being heard through the ears of Kublai Khan ... exultant, economically sparse and yet luxurious on the senses and sensibilities of our most universal desires for adventure, conquest, possessions and the ultimate weight they bring by being objects once desired and now cuckolding the possessor to maintain and sustain them as part of a bolder whole... and across the grandest exposition of human civilization that is fictional Cities, little discrete gems and spheres among grander expanses of civilized space and time.

Whether we envision our own personal empire as cobbled together from things or thoughts, we are duly changed in the contemplation of all that we surmise, whether or not we consume and administer them...

Marco Polo arrived in Katai (now China) by traveling as long as 3 years and a half. He would be staying at the Kublai Khan's court for 17 years as ambassador and governor. Thanks to his experience and travels book the commercial enterprise will develop into the Far East during the next centuries. Most of the cities Polo had written of don't exist in the modern era. Some changed their name. Kublai Khan was chief of an endless empire whose capital he established in Khanbalik (Peking). He ruled from Mongolia to Tibet, from China to Birman: was he a right and wise sovereign too? Polo would answer affirmative, but we know he had been an employee by Kublai who paid the duties to him for a fortune! It's common knowledge in Italy that the memories of Polo were titled 'The Million' to remember such a wealth. This is the history... "Why do you lie, foreigner?". Kublai Khan noticed all the cities Polo told him were seeming to resemble as though the passing from one to another shouldn't imply a journey but an exchange of elements only. Promptly Khan was going to browse on his atlas the maps of the cities which threaten from nightmares and curses: Enoch, Babylon, Yahoo, Butua, Brave New World... And this is "The Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino. Maybe you too, while surfing the Net, realize the differences are going to vanish and each city looks like all other cities, an out-and-out dust swarms into the continents. Cities akin to Dante's Inferno? Read the book or write to me to get answer!

Invisible Cities provides an abstract if not surreal vision into the many perspectives of the city. Set as conversation between the infamous Marco Polo and Kublai Khan Invisible Cities documents Marco Polo's vivid and imaginative descriptions of the cities that he has seen. Author Italo Calvino provides many philosophical musings regarding the nature of Marco Polo's travels and brings to question the very essence of existence and our conceptions of place.

Marco Polo's descriptions of cities are remarkable. He tells of each city not only through the lens of his own personal perspective, but he goes to great lengths to describe how the residents in each place understand the city and what emotions they attach to their location. As he recalls each city Marco Polo manages a certain detachment through which he describes the movement of each city's residents as if they were ants occupying an ant hill.

Calvino creates a complex mental puzzle in the conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan that forces the reader to come to grips with the transient nature of physical space. As Invisible Cities progresses the reader becomes aware of the different emotions and conceptions that we all attach to cities and places and how our feelings can transform the physical manifestations of those places into an entirely different existence than what others experience.

Calvino is poetic in his descriptions of splendor and ruin. Invisible Cities is worth reading for the descriptive language alone. Marco Polo's descriptions make his places come alive and create a truly immersive experience through the use of Calvino's powerful imagery.

One of my favorite books of all time. Calvino mesmerizes with his tale of the Kublai Khan and Marco Polo seeing worlds of cities beyond imagination and metaphor. You'll see ancient cities in your mind, you'll gain insights into the ruins, you'll see the cities of Calvino's dreams. Nothing is as powerful as a dreamer. Calvino's dreams tops all.

forever,
Annie

Annie Lanzillotto
author of "L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir" SUNY Press
and "Schistsong" BORDIGHERA Press

www.annielanzillotto.com

L Is for Lion: An Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Memoir (SUNY series in Italian/American Culture)
Schistsong (Via Folios)
Blue Pill
Carry My Coffee (Live)
Eleven Recitations

I had the good fortune to read "Invisible Cities" while in Venice and other parts of Northern Italy, where I felt like I was visiting many of the cities described in the book. This book is a tiny little gem collection, with descriptions of each city stretching your brain in a different direction. However, I do feel that some of the chapters are repetitive, particularly on the theme of cities that contain their opposites. For that, I have taken away one star in my review. It reminded me very much of Alan Lightman's book "Einstein's Dreams" which I would also recommend (he's no Calvino, but the format and brain-stretching are similar). My favorite Calvino book will forever remain "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler," which if you do not own you should immediately order a dozen copies and pass them out to everyone you know.

I love this book. In it, Marco Polo describes to Kubla Khan all the cities of his kingdom, all of which are, in fact, the same city. The book is imaginative, magical, and rich in gorgeous imagery. It offers a whole repertoire of ways of seeing and demonstrates how language can create multiple worlds.

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.

In architecture school, I had to draw these cities from Calvino's descriptions. His amazingly descriptive and yet vauge recollections made for a great jumping off point.

Each chapter of 'Invisible Cities' is an evocative recollection of a fanciful and fantastic city. The descriptions are perfectly distilled, strikingly vivid yet dreamy prose photographs.

Loosen your ties to reality and let this book take you. Read it uncritically and let the scenery wash over you. There is no plot. There are no characters. This is a book about the intersection of reality, language, and the senses. It isn't to be missed.

I was recommended this book from my friend shortly after finishing graduate school when in need of a good detox-read. To me the book was far from the brainless entertainment I was hoping for. In fact, Invisible Cities was full of thought provoking and poetic images of imaginary cities expressed through dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublia Khan. At first I was struck by the unusual premise for the story and then later struck by the highly symbolic descriptions of the cities. Through Calvino's use of symbolism I began to have a different appreciation for the forms and structures of cities and civilizations. This could have been the first time I really thought about cities as a living architecture and the container for our memories and dreams.

With all of the above said, one problem I had when reading Invisible Cities was my mind seemed to easily drift off the page. The book reads more like poetry then a novella and I felt that halfway through the book the form of the chapters became almost too redundant. I think that if I were to re-read the book and spend some time with it I could have gained greater insight into Italo Calinvo's perspective and creative mind. Although I am not rushing to re-read it anytime soon, I would possibly read it again in the future.

Consisting entirely of descriptions of fantastical cities supposedly reported by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, Calvino's fiction is sui generis, a completely original mixture of fable and philosophy that is even more imaginative than his more critical theory-oriented "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler." This is the kind of novel Borges might have written. A celebration of the unbridled imagination, "Invisible Cities" is also, I am convinced, a secret love letter to a single city: the imaginary dream-city of Venice, a place that exists partly as its own reflection in the sea.