Sunday, October 2, 2011

reading post #6

Invisible Cities is composed by conversations between Marco Polo, a Venetian Traveler, and Kublai Khan, an oriental emperor. The plot is very strange— there is no beginning, no development of characters (besides the two mentioned), no direct background reference to the reader. Calvino’s writing can be described as surrealistic. Towards the end of the book, cities that described by Marco Polo and told to the emperor are surreal: they are rarely built of bricks or mortar; they are full of aluminium springs, silver domes, crystal, bronze, seashells, etc. It seems that every time Marco Polo told Kublai a completely different city. They are strange, magical, invisible cities that nobody else ever saw. None of them are the same. But finally readers will find out that all the cities are exactly the same one—Zobeide.

The conversations structure reminds me the book of One Thousand and One Night. The emperor was bored of the stories brought to him by his messengers across the empire. Only the stories told by Marco Polo, of the cities that he met during his travels, keep him interested.

I think the point when the story comes into Art is visualizing the invisible city. After each short new description of the city, reader has to stop and to think; to integrate each piece of prose into a real living city. Just like play a puzzle.

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