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)