Invis­i­ble Cities Italo Calvino
Har­court Brace Jovanovich 1978World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Italo Calvino’s Invis­i­ble Cities revolves around con­ver­sa­tions between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The pair sit in the Great Khan’s gar­dens, and Marco Poli tells of all the cities he has vis­ited on his trav­els. Many — if not most — of these cities lie within the Khan’s empire, which is so vast that the ruler him­self has never seen much of it.

The cities Polo describes all have women’s (or at least fem­i­nine) names: Octavia, Despina, Hypa­tia, Sophro­nia, etc. Polo presents fifty-five cities, each as an almost poetic vignette. Some of these con­cern a city’s his­tory — or future. Oth­ers describe a city’s lay­out, arrange­ment, or archi­tec­ture. Still oth­ers tell of the effects a city has on a trav­eler, either dur­ing or after his visit. Nearly all of Polo’s descrip­tions are fab­u­lous: one city is built on tall stilts over dry land, another mir­rors the goings-on in a sub­ter­ranean ver­sion of itself, yet another con­sists of per­ma­nent car­ni­val rides and tem­po­rary mar­ble buildings.

Calvino arranges Polo’s fifty-five vignettes into nine chap­ters and cat­e­go­rizes them: five each of cities and mem­ory, cities and desire, cities and signs, thin cities, trad­ing cities, cities and eyes, cites and names, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, con­tin­u­ous cities, and hid­den cities. Each chap­ter begins and ends with an exchange between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The pair pon­ders to what degree the Great Khan can ever truly know his empire, the nature of cities, and even the nature of existence.

I enjoyed Invis­i­ble Cities quite a bit. Calvino’s cities are delight­fully fan­tas­tic, and his brief but rich descrip­tions pro­vide ample fod­der for expan­sion by a reader’s imag­i­na­tion. I par­tic­u­larly like the way in which Calvino blurs the tem­po­ral set­ting of the book. Kublai Khan and Marco Polo lived in the thir­teenth cen­tury, and much of the book fits this time period. But, amid palaces, vel­lum, and camel car­a­vans, Calvino’s Polo also describes radar anten­nae, air­ports, and adver­tis­ing jingles.

I liked this book more than I did If on a winter’s night a trav­eler, the one other book by Calvino that I’ve read. I think I’ll seek out more of his work.