Choices are Life

“Life is a series of choices, creating stress”

Some people say that life is already fixed, the following of a path. Freewill in non-existent, everything and everyone is controlled by some divine plan written in a old leather book. We should all sit back and let destiny take the wheel. But if our path is set out then what is life if not a series of choices? The Stranger poses this question in various instances. Meursault wonders why we take so much trouble in our life making these choices if no one will remember us. Why wouldn’t they Meursault? Will these decisions no have built towards the present and therefore have some significance? Existentialism posed by Camus is only rational in a hypothetical world but when seen in as is, major flaws rise.

“On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but just in time, I remembered that I had killed a man.” (64)

The murder that divides this book shows the importance of choice and how they create stress. Camus highlights how in a short amount of time Meursault life changes. His outlook on life is also felt by the sudden shift towards a more emotional character. Part two feels almost as if a new character had replaced Meursault: open thoughts and caring behavior. The indifference towards the crime poses only a shift in this decision equals stress behavior. Camus develops an interesting idea; there is always a reaction but not just stress, a change. In great choices, paradoxical changes are produced even though they are unrelated to the choice.

The novel’s ending in Meursault’s monologue on how choices don’t matter because death is inevitable, poses a very reasonable point. How can the entire thing done in a period of time have any meaning if the ending is ever-present? The answer is simple: choices will make the difference between a short period of unhappiness and a very happy yet short time.

Time Traveler

Throughout The Stranger the concept of time seams random. Camus constantly skips huge chunks of the story for what seams no apparent reason. However these gaps hold valuable information that is extracted by inference. “It was the same sun, the same light shining on the same sand as before. For two hours they had stood still; for two hours it had been anchored in a sea of molten lead.” (58) The gap in the excerpt is used as a highlight on how Meursault is nervously waiting on the beach. But what Meursault doesn’t want to tell us is how nervous and uncomfortable he is. As the novel’s narrator, he hides his fear by skipping over emotions, that somehow are not worth telling.

“A few days after I entered prison, I realized that I wouldn’t like talking about this part of my life” (72)

Throughout the first part of The Stranger Meursault tries to avoid any kind of moments that will inspire emotion. In pg 44, when Salamano’ life is told, he skips the time between his wife dying and where he is now. These huge plot holes where any author would be glad to write an extensive emotional flash back are omitted which aid to the understanding of Meursault as a character and a possible reflection of Camus himself. Considering that these gaps are characteristic for emotional moments, the author might be omitting these moments because they are not worth being told. As an existentialist, the repetition between days and other people lives is time consuming and does not deserve a spot in the novel.

The books style and tonality change in Part 2, when a new self-bound prison inmate reveals his thoughts on what he is going through. “On my way out I was even going to shake his hand but just in time, I remembered that I had killed a man.” This quote shows how great Meursault’s change is between parts of the novel. Although gaps continue in the second part of the novel their use as emotion blockers changes to reveal a educated man with only his thought to live for.

Existentialistic Critique

“After that everything seemed to happen so fast, so deliberately, so naturally that I don’t remember any of it anymore. Except for one thing: as we entered the village, the nurse spoke to me.” (17)

This strange novel has only begun and it seams anyone could write a doctoral dissertation on a few pages.  Camus fills his book with existentialism and critiques on human society. Take the excerpt above, although Meursault has gone through a ‘traumatic’ experience he feels everything went to fast for him to care. As non-existentialists these feelings seam harsh or inhumane but that is Camus point, to critique the average persons obsessive behavior of the past. Mourning over the death of his mother would seam illogical for there is nothing Meursault can do about it. This toughness in the main character is what the author uses to attack human behaviors he disproves of. Camus might also be trying to hint something by using the nurse as the only person that actually matters to him. This nurse perhaps means that the only way a person can be healed is physically because it cures a present wound.

“On their way out, and much to my surprise, they all shook my hand-as if that night during which we hadn’t exchanged as much as a signal word had somehow brought us closer together.”

Although The Stranger appears to be a simple tale of middle-aged man in search of a purpose, Camus’ novel is much more of a propaganda for existentialism. Using situations and emotions most readers have had, the author is able to plant existentialism as the only explanation. Most people have been to a funeral and felt the same way Meursault feels: confused for why attending such an event makes people closer together. Logically the author would be right, how would an hour or two of mourning in silence make you feel like the know each other? Yet most know that although no words are said, mourning as a team feels much better. Camus opinions in the novel can be easily debated by reversing his logic.

The use of an indifferent personality is great tool that Camus uses smoothly to bring controversial topics intro the readers mind. Death was the highlight of the pure beginning of the book and now it has turned to love and physical abuse. When we discussed existentialism in class it felt ridiculous for how could the present be the only relevant part of time? Where you’ve been and where your going seams is almost everyone concern, constantly. The main character follows this absurd philosophy up to the point where he might wonder if it’s right. “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but than I didn’t think so. She looked sad.” (35)

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?

                                         

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?