The City Through My Eyes

Invisible Cities is by far the most confusing book I have ever read. Calvino’s un unravel able web is indestructible. So far the metaliterature explanation has been key into really understanding what the author is trying to get across. It was only by reading a classmates blog, was I able to decipher the key for fourth section.

“ “And yet I know,” he would say, “that my empire is made of the stuff of crystals, its molecules arranged in a perfect pattern…Why do your travel impression stop at disappointing appearances, never catching the implacable process?...” (pg 60)

This confusing section now has become clear, there is going to be a change in perspective. Will this change be hinted towards Kublai Khan writing of the cities he has imagined? What does this change mean? The reader must now construct his own cities for Marco Polo has said enough for us to become the travelers. Perhaps the Venetian has no more cities to tell and so we must construct our own cities now.

The change in perspective metaliterally is Calvino explaining how a book, in this case a city, can be the same yet seen differently by travelers. This is true for many things for a change in perspective may be necessary to comprehend an object in its entirety. If we are limited only by our point of view then how can we claim we have seen all the faces the object has to offer us? Travelers see different meanings and perhaps all are true. “the traveler sees not one city but many of equal size and unlike one another, scattered over a vast, rolling plateau.” (pg64)

The change in perspective can be understood as well as if us, the readers, are now able to view the cities through our own eyes. No longer are we limited to the tales of Marco Polo, we can now explore cities by ourselves and therefore the book will change for the readers. “This is the result: the city that they speak of has much of what is needed to exist, whereas the city that exists on its site, exists less.”(pg67) This change in perspective hints that as the book goes on, the harder will it be for us to keep up with the writing for we will find that we are by ourselves with no guide to cross the cities. Although such a strong change of pace feels drastic, it might be what this book needs for the cities to be entertaining.  

An Empty Book

Invisible Cities is truly a deceit, for no reader realizes how the book has taken his expeditions to the bottom of the jungle until he looks back and sees the gold city he was promised.

“ “Your cities do not exist, Perhaps they have never existed. It is sure they will never exist again, Why do you amuse yourself with consolatory fables?...” (pg51)

I’ve read an extensive portion of the book and still I missing the last piece to the puzzle. The cities are all the same for the literary aspect in this book has no importance. If the cities exist, what are they? My prediction is that these cities are they style or essence of writing. Calvino is mapping how this style works and therefore creating his own map. What is this lecture or tribute we are given? “No one, wise Kublai, know better than you that the city must never be confused with the words that describe it.” (pg 61)

The cities have taught me so far that the importance in the cities is what they stand for and the way they stand for what they are is irrelevant. Calvino’s goal might be to show that the contents of a novel are pointless for the allegory and the style used to create such content is what it’s all about. If this is the meaning of the novel the why was it revealed at such an early point in the book? What will be the finale to these cities? Most people say the journey is the best part of the trip and the destination is irrelevant. What the novel teaches us is that how you got there and with whom is what matters for the destination is just an invisible city.

“One of the half cities is permanent. The othe is temporary, and when the period of sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half city.” (Pg 63)

Who Knew?

Recently I learned that Invisible Cities is a story about a story. What a mind-blow this was, this is like the key to the entire book. Like Kubali Khan, I can now understand my explorer for I have learned Calvino’s language. Although I don’t speak Italian, every city has become visible.

“Beware of saying to them that sometimes different cities follow one another on the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another…” (Pg. 13)

The cities are the same. Calvino has made this tales not to illustrate a bunch of cities but to show how these cities are to be understood. The true purpose of the book is the allegory hidden beneath the cities. Though the understanding of the book is important as Kubali Khan I ask “What is the use, then of all your traveling?”(pg 27). Why is the purpose of a tail on how to tell a tail?  For it seams Calvino is only looking to explore the boundaries. There is no what just a how.

“But why, then, does the city exist? What lines separates the inside from the outside, the rumble of the wheels from the howl of the wolves?” (pg34)

To answer this question I’ll refer to the documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Director Morgan Spurlock attempts to make a film to finance his film. Your probably confused so let me explain. Spurlock is making a documentary out of his own pocket to show how advertisement works. To do so he will attempt to regain the money he’s investing into his movie by filling it with product placements. There’s a twist, instead of having the an Aston Martin with missile launchers like 007, Spurlock’s film will show him obtaining and developing the advertisement for the brands. Calvino is doing the same: he is showing how a story is told by telling one. This is an effective method for the example is being set by the piece itself.

There is still no evidence for to what Calvino whishes to establish. The how is the what but what is it? Morgan Spurlock concluded that the future in financing films is product placement but what’s Calvino’s? Is he showing us a story has to fit no boundary maybe even no order? How is he pushing the short story frontier?