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?