Invisible Cities - Review

INVISIBLE CITIES

- Italo Calvino

Our understanding of the characteristic descriptions are an Interpretation; an effort to try, and rescue the “said” from perishing in the midst of process of communicating an idea.

Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant travelled and narrated his explorations of Asia to Kublai Khan, a Chinese ruler. However, what is surprising about this telltale is that, Marco used hand gestures and quick sketches to describe cities after cities to the great king, but in later tales, a growing vocabulary enhanced the descriptions.

Marco Polo describes the cities and buildings not as streets with houses made of brick-stone-wood on either sides, but instead completely forgetting to describe the shape and form. Suggesting cities should never be confused with the words that describe it, but what the words represent or forget to represent that contains the city in essence.

To him, cities are ever changing, ever evolving (FEDORA, Cities and Desire 4) onto paths already decided for it even before its founding stone was laid. How some cities exhibit a million different activities on every street every second, or how the same activity is repeated a million times around each bent of a street. (ZIRMA, CITIES AND SIGNS 2)

Marco, cryptically details the cities out without giving us the real picture, even if the cities are non-existent. Interesting is one such description of ARMILLA, (Thin Cities 3) how he paints the picture of a Jungle of just metal pipes, taps and showers, and porcelain fruits in the form of bathtubs, basins and sinks suspended in the Void. But at a deeper insight, it makes us realize how he is describing a city made of GLASS, Glass floor/roof and Glass walls. Also the word ARMILLA means an Astronomical Observatory. Various city names have meanings which expresses the city in a word.

Marco Polo’s cities are rarely built of bland bricks and mortar. They are full of aluminium springs, silver domes, crystal, bronze, seashells, high bastions, curved arcades, nets, banisters, awnings, dirigibles, globes, pagodas, gratings, garrets, pilings, verandahs, parapets and porphyry steps.

Calvino probably sums it up as follows: the descriptions of cities Marco Polo visited had this virtue, you could wander through them in thought, become lost, stop and enjoy the cool air, or run off.

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