The Book of Meanings

What a strange narrative is Invisible Cities. Without having started reading just based on the index and title I knew the novel would be complicated and entreating, and it has been. I’ve only begun and already feel every line in this book has a figurative meaning. Most books compose allegories as a whole but Italo Calvino seams to have hid a meaning behind every phrase. The main title suggests an allegory that we have to clearly search thought our reading. My goal in these blogs will be to look out for the title’s meaning or perhaps the entire book’s allegory.

Although I have just started reading I feel the book’s true meaning is that the cities Marco Polo describes are imaginary or “invisible”. All the descriptions the explorer gives have much deeper meanings and it feels like the descriptions lack importance. The story is actually happening, Marco Polo is telling Kublai Khan what he thinks he saw, what Marco Polo or the author are is trying to illustrate, I don’t know. There is a hidden agenda in each city and so far just  a few have become obvious.

“As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands” (pg. 10)

The excerpt above appears ‘coincidentally’ in "Cites and Memories 3". The true meaning of these "Cities and Memories" is simply how Marco Polo is starting to ‘remember’ everything he has seen in his journey. For his memory is now being able to reconstruct how these cities looked like. “a city that no one having seen it, can forget.”(pg15). We can conclude that these cities are perhaps the explorers memory starting to work out every detail. But if these are not really memories then what do they mean?

In "Cities and Signs" it feels like the Calvino is suggesting that as readers we must be alert for any symbolisms or other literary devices he will use. He even uses the chapter title to tell us to look out for “signs”. “The eye does not see things but images of things that mean other things.” (pg 13) The excerpt is a clear “slap in the face” for us to wake up and discover the meaning of Calvino’s cities. He does it again in "Cities and Signs 2" “The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind” (pg 19). These declarations are clearly meant for us, the readers, to really comprehend the messages in the novel the author is trying to get across. To what point will these messages continue and will they help? That I do not know

I am intrigued for the allegory of this story might be the best part. Are they all one city? And what do the cities mean?