Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

 

Italian author extraordinaire - Italo Calvino, 1923-1985

Invisible Cities - a Calvino novel to luxuriate in, to frolic in, to set your imagination on fire. So many fine reviews of this classic have appeared over the years by writers such as Joseph McElroy (1974 New York Times review, the year the novel appeared in English) and John Updike who observed,“Calvino was a genial as well as brilliant writer. He took fiction into new places where it had never been before, and back into the fabulous and ancient sources of narrative.”

So, rather than formulating my own review using a conventional format, here are ten questions we can ask ourselves while journeying with Calvino -

1. What are we to make of Calvino using two historical figures from the medieval period – Kublai Khan and Marco Polo – to frame his novel?

2. Is Calvino engaging in a bit of postmodern fun when he has Marco Polo include such things as refrigerators and airports in his descriptions of cities?

3. In what ways do cities, otherwise invisible, become visible to us through fiction?

4. What are the substantial differences between our memories of having visited a real city and having visited the cities in Calvino's Invisible Cities or other cities in other works of fiction? If we read in a state of heightened awareness, an awareness much keener than walking around a brick and mortar city half asleep, wouldn't this imagined city be more real for us?

5. Marco Polo describes fifty-five cities, all the cities bearing the name of a woman. What are the links between cities and the feminine?

6. At one point, Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan in his description of all of these cities, in a certain way, he is also describing Venice. How would you explain this?

7. Italo Calvino himself stated directed that Invisible Cities has no direct end, because "this book was made as a polyhedron, and it has conclusions everywhere, written along all of its edges." What do you make of the author's statement?

8. The structure of the novel can be seen to contain a good bit of mathematics (check out the Wiki entry on Invisible Cities with references to semiotics and structuralism). What connection to mathematics can you detect?

9. The fifty-five cities are divided into 11 groups as per below. What are the common qualities within each of the 11 groups? What is the significance of Calvino having 5 iterations of each of the 11 and how does each group relate to the others?

1. Cities & Memory
2. Cities & Desire
3. Cities & Signs
4. Thin Cities
5. Trading Cities
6. Cities & Eyes
7. Cities & Names
8. Cities & the Dead
9. Cities & the Sky
10. Continuous Cities
11. Hidden Cities

10. Which cities fire your own imagination the most and can you think of any other novel where imagination plays a more decisive role? I can't!

For me, the cities that have resonated the deepest are Calvino's Thin Cities. Here they are, each with a Calvino quote along with my comment.

ISAURA
This is the city of the thousand wells since it rises, or so it's said, over a deep, subterranean lake. "On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no father." With all the water, Isaura does indeed remind one of Venice.



ZENOBIA
"But what is certain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of a happy city, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines." I can imagine denizens of a number of cities thinking their city the best, the one city they are more than happy to live it, cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco - and Venice. Oh, I forgot to mention my own city of Philadelphia!



ARMILLA
This is the city that's all exposed plumbing, an entire city of pipes running vertically and horizontally. "At any hour, raising your eyes among the pipes, you are likely to glimpse a young woman, or many your women, slender, not tall of stature, luxuriating in the bathtubs or arching their backs under the showers suspended in the void, washing or drying or perfuming themselves, or combing their long hair at a mirror." Oh, baby, as a typical guy, I'd like to make a beeline to Armilla.



SOPHRONIA
Here we have two half-cities pressed together - one half, a substantial city made with much stone, a city like Edinburgh, and the other half an amusement part/circus complete with roller coaster, Ferris wheels and big top tent. "One of the half-cities is permanent, the other temporary, and when the period of its sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-city." Then the surprise: the Edinburgh-like half is the one that's temporary. 

OCTAVIA
This is the spider-web city. "There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks." Any takers for a guided tour? By my modest judgement, one of the more unique of Marco Polo's (and also Calvino's) cities. 

*Note: A special thanks to David Bordelon and the Ocean County College Globetrotters. I learned so much during our Zoom book discussion of this Calvino classic.