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![]() ![]() until I reached the end I still wasn't completely sure what I thought and then when I did I felt a strong sense of melancholy even though nothing sad had happened and a desire to read it all over again. the writing is really incredible - I'm usually awful at imagining things but somehow even the short descriptions of each place conjured up whole cities in my head - I felt totally immersed. each concept made me want to think on it more, to imagine it more completely. and each touches on important issues like death, history, justice, memory, meaning... all of it sparked ideas constantly and sometimes made me think of things in different ways. idk. it's hard to explain the feeling. it felt bittersweet, like a feeling of loss for these places which don't and can't exist. I liked it a lot Invisible Cities is one of six entries for Italo Calvino (1923-1985) in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The other five are
(Links on the titles are to Wikipedia.) (1001 Books does not include The Complete Cosmicomics (1997), probably because it's not a novel, it's a collection of short stories, one of which I reviewed recently.) The citation for Invisible Cities from 1001 Books says that:
But it was the article at Wikipedia that offered me a schematic way to read it... Invisible Cities is structured in 9 chapters, each prefaced by a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, and followed by a coda where they reflect on the cities just described. Like Alexander the Great who could not maintain control of the lands he had conquered, the Khan is bothered from outset of the story that the size of his empire makes it impossible for him to know it all. The more it expands, the more it inevitably results in places too far from civilisation to be 'healed' and corruption is inevitable. So the Khan tends to be a bit testy, and Marco Polo has to walk a tightrope between maintaining his own intellectual authority and respect for the all-powerful ruler of a mighty empire. In Calvino's deconstruction of the travel literature genre, Marco Polo is not just a merchant-traveller or an entertainer, he is also a politician and philosopher, one who must always be one step ahead of the emperor. The mental atlas of the empire is eventually likened to a chess board and it is a duel that the emperor does not want to lose. Like chess, a game of patterns, logic and strategy, the story is framed mathematically. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/07/26/invisible-cities-1972-by-italo-calvino-trans... Absolutely fascinating. The book comprises of Marco Polo describing surreal, fantastic cities to Kublai Khan. That's the book. This book really reminds me of Jorge Luis Borges, where each story is a puzzle, and looks to be the size of the puddle, but you dip your toe in, and it reveals the depth of the ocean. The description of each city was only a page long, two at the very most. Yet, each one felt so real, and often would have some sort of philosophical quandary, which would leave me thinking long after finishing. This feels like a book that gets even better on rereads. no reviews | add a review
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In Kublai Khan's garden, at sunset, the young Marco Polo diverts the aged emperor from his obsession with the impending end of his empire with tales of countless cities past, present, and future. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)853.914Literature Italian Italian fiction 1900- 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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