Imaginations and Utopias

Kublai asks Marco Polo, “I do not know when you have had time to visit all the countries you describe to me. It seems to me you have never moved from this garden” (103). If we are looking at it in a metaliterary way, we are asking Calvino how he has had time to visit all these cities, when all he does is sit in a room.

The first italic part in section seven made me think about imagination. Are all the cities, their dialogue, their relationship imagined? Is he trying to say that once we grow up we may loose our imagination, but we try hard to keep it, and that we try hard to not grow up?  On the other hand, can he also be trying to say we replace all the evil in the world with good things, “Perhaps this dialogue of ours is taking place between two beggars… as they swift through a rubbish heap…wastepaper…while drunk on the few sips of bad wine…” (104).

The first thing that caught my attention in Cities & Eyes 5 was the first sentence in the last paragraph, “ From one part to the other, the city seems to continue, in perspective, multiplying it repertory of images” (105). This is EXACTLY like our minds, our imagination. We never stop thinking. Our imagination is never ending. In the quote above, our mind is the city and our imagination represents the word continue. Our imagination continues. Even though we are getting older, and we have less time to pretend and imagine, we still have some of it left in us.

Cities & the Dead 3 made me think that maybe Calvino is making fun of utopias.  First, the city’s name is Eusapia, it kind of looks like the word utopia. Secondly, the part that he could be making fun of utopias is when he says, “ the inhabitants have constructed an identical copy of their city underground…all corpses, dried…” (109). The underground seems like a description of hell, and that is not what you would find in a utopia. Then it says that they put the dead corpses and skeletons in dancing positions or seated around tables. It is the complete opposite of a utopia. They could be trying to be perfect and even make the dead look happy and joyful, but it is just creepy.

The last sentence really caught my attention, “…there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead,” (110). Is that just like society today? We are all just the same and copying one another. The dead are people who no longer are original while the people living above the underground are people who still have a bit of originality. “They say…actually it was the dead who built the upper Eusapia…” (110). In my mind, the dead seem like the people who copy original ideas while the upper part are the original people. It is said that the copiers were the ones who created the people who are original, and now we cannot see the difference between the two any more. 

Connecting With Other Blogs

Gaby's blog had interesting viewpoints. The last paragraph is the one that caught my attention. First, she says that Calvino is describing the cities as if you were there to witness it. I think that is very true, he uses sensory images a lot. Mostly, it is so that the reader and Kublai Khan have an idea on what they should be imagining. Except, once he starts to describe a person, which is what Gaby had said in her blog, he never names them. All he does is describe them physically. Just imagine it, if you are sitting in a café, looking at people walking on the street, you do not know their names, all you know is what they look like. 

Once I read the last sentence, her idea became clear, “It is through these descriptions that the reader acts as not only the audience, but also as a citizen of every city that is described throughout the book”. We do act as citizens in each city he describes, as if we already know it. The memories and desires he writes about, seem as if we already knew them. As if those memories and those desires were ours.

In Gaby’s blog, she mentions that the cities begin to merge. I decided to add that I think he uses words of the names of different “categories” in separate “categories”.

The word of one city, like Cities & Eyes, is seen in another city, like Cities & The Sky. When you read it, many of the descriptions have to do with eyes and looking at the city. A few examples are, “At first sight,” and “Which escapes your eye distracted by the bustle,” and “when you concentrate and stare at the carpet,” (96). Each sentence has to do with you eyes, and when I read them, I immediately thought of another city. Does Calvino want this? I think he is trying to show in a subliminal way that all these cities are connected somehow. If the italic part were not added, this message would not have been clear. “Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice,” (86) this sentence made me start thinking that all these cities resemble each other. They each have a characteristic about Venice.

When I look back at my previous blog One Step at a Time, I noticed that in that one I was still confused on who was describing the cities. As I keep reading the book, analyzing the cities and what they actually mean, it becomes a lot easier to understand. I do have to read each city a couple of times until I understand it, but then once I do, I feel like I have accomplished something. 

Can The Cities Symbolize Our Lives?

Discussion in class:

“You advance always with your head turned back,” (28). In class, we reviewed this quote and found the met literature of it. Each section changes because of the previous section. You understand the section you read previously by reading the current section. This also has to do with life, you understand what you did in the past because of what you are or do in the present. Maybe we are physically living in the present, but mentally in the past.

Back to blogs about Invisible Cities:

Maybe the empire that Kublai Khan and Marco Polo keep on referring to is actually our imagination. On page 73 it says, “… The Great Khan watches his empire grow,” with every new city that is added and described, our imagination grows. We see different things and notice different things.

Later on, Polo describes a city that Kublai Khan dreamed about, Lalage. What if that city actually represents all dreams? The way it is describes made me think of it that way, “Its inhabitants arranged these invitations to rest in the night sky so that the moon would grant everything in the city the power to grow and grow endlessly,” (74). Perhaps our mind is the inhabitants and the dreams are the invitations. The dreams usually come at night when the moon is out, and we are sleeping. The moon has the power for everything to grow endlessly, which means that at night we do not just have one dream, but we dream on endlessly. They continue to grow until we wake up the next morning. Once the moon and the night sky are away, we stop dreaming.

“You walk on little wooden ties, careful not to set your foot in the open spaces…Below there is nothing for hundreds…of feet…you can glimpse the chasm’s bed,” (75). This quote represents the lives of people. You never know what can happen, if you make one mistake or a wrong turn, you can fall in that darkness which is equivalent to our death. The city, Octavia, is a symbol of human’s lives. Just as the last quote on the page says, “They know the net will last only so long,” we know that one day our lives will end. We do not know when or how, but it will.

There was a connection between Trading Cities 4 and Thin Cities 5, they both use the word: spider-webs. Page 75, “…Octavia, the spider-web city,” and on page 76, “…spider-webs of intricate relationships seeking a form,” show the author using the word. It could be that Calvino is just repeating a word, like how I repeated the word dream six times earlier. However, Calvino writes what he does because there is a meaning behind it. What is the meaning behind repetition? Another example is earlier on in the book when he repeats that Marco Polo was ignorant of the Levant languages and that he could only express himself with gestures. Repetition is something used a lot in this book, and I still have no figured out what for.

Past & Present & Future

The intro borders those three words: past, present and future. Marco explains that one person’s present could be another’s future, but one change in roads can modify that.

Kublai Khan, the reader, asks Marco Polo, the author, if the purpose of these travels is to relive the past or recover the future. Marco responds by saying, “ The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have,” (29). That sentence is divided in times, ‘…little that is his…’ represents the present, ‘…much he has not had…’ represents the past and ‘…will never have…’ represents the future. He already knows what he has, and then he visits the cities and sees things that he knows he never had in the past. Then, along the lines with what this intro is trying to say, he realizes that what he sees he can never have because he chose to take a different road compared to other people.

Marco says that the more one was lost in unfamiliar cities, the more one understands the other cities. All of them connect in some way. For example, in section 3, the first three chapters mention women. Not just that they are there, but they play a main part in the city. Perhaps the cities symbolize his life. Shown in Cities & Desire 5, there is a woman who keeps running away, but once they try to keep the women in one place, she cannot be found. This may represent something in Marcos life. We do not know what, but it may be a lost love.

As I read the first Trading Cities, I thought that maybe all the descriptions of the cities have a bit of each characteristic, for example: memories, desires or signs. Except, they are named the way they are, because each one has a little more of one topic. In Trading Cities it mentions that, “…you start summoning up your memories one by one…” it mentions about memories, but the overall ‘theme’ is about trading. On page 36 it says, “…At each word the one man says…the others tell, each one…” the city is trading stories that one man shared.

In section two, Cities & Desire 4 really connects with the italics part in the beginning because, just like mentioned in the intro, Fedora, the city, also brings up the ‘what if’ question. One main question that is asked in this chapter is, “How would Fedora look if other events happened,” and it links with, “How would my life look if I took another road”. On page 32 you can clearly see what I mean, “…the waters of the canal (if it had not been dried up)…” and a couple more of those. This city is imagining another city, resembling this one, but one they like better. They are longing for a city that they desiring.

Kublai Khan doubts Marco Polo a bit, whether or not these cities really do exist, or is he just messing with his mind and repeating detail. Just like the readers might be thinking about Calvino. Is he really telling us the truth? Do these cities really exist? It is possible that these cities are all a story. They lead to something, represent something in a relationship. All these cities are an emblem that we are still trying to figure out. They are going to lead us to understand the truth behind the connection between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. 

One Step At A Time

When you look at the table of content of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, you see that each ‘chapter’ has numbers next to it. Some have the same name, but different numbers next to it and some have different names and the same number next to it. This means that there are about three different ways to read the book: the way the author ordered it, by the same number next to each chapter or by the same name for each chapter. I decided to read it by the name of each chapter, meaning I started reading all of chapters called Cities & memory and then I went to Cities & desire and so on.

The book is so intriguing that you cannot stop reading. There is no story, when Calvino is describing the cities. Its short and simple, and it keeps your from getting bored. The way the sentences are made makes the reading go quick and smoothly. There is not much sentence variety, most of them are long sentences, but since it is mostly descriptions, it is easier to read.

 He begins with a description of the city, it can be long or short, and in Cities & memories, he describes a memory from when he was there. To me, it is still a bit sketchy about who the person is. I believe it is Marco Polo describing all the cities, but I am not sure.

            What I thought was interesting about Cities & signs were that in these cities, everything had a meaning. In one of the cities you have a description that says you leave the city without actually getting to know it, and on page fourteen you can see that, “…the city may really be, beneath this thick coating of signs…you leave Tamara without having discovered it”. This has to do with allegories; everything in that city has a meaning, which made me think that maybe all the cities symbolize something. Perhaps it symbolizes the relationship between Marco Polo and Kudai.

            At the end of each section, you have a brief part about Marco Polo and Kudai. How the two communicate and how they meet is revealed in these parts. I think that the cities represent the relationship between the two main characters. Whatever happens in these cities, whether it is something good or bad, it represents things that happen in their relationship.

           

In class we discussed that the book is an allegory. Maybe it means that the cities are metaphors for something. They could possibly represent the relationship between the two characters, as I stated before. They could also represent a major part in the story that we still have not figured out.

I do have a few questions that I hope will be answered when I finish the book.

• ·      Is Marco Polo telling these stories?
• ·      Why does he use Marco Polo as a character?
• ·      Why are the chapters called the way they are?
• ·      Am I reading it correctly?

Trust Is Key

We played the games that Dawkins explained in the book and it can be applied to real life. I had related it to court. If you have a friend and you decide to cooperate, then everything will be fine. Except if one of you decides to tell the truth and the other does not, the one who lies, goes to jail. Then if you both decide to tell the truth, you both lose something. It is all based on trust. If there is no trust between relationships, then it will fall apart. The games try to show that and it was extremely accurate.

When we played in class you could see who trusted who and how important trust means in life. 

Do We Create Our Own Future?

Being selfish has been around for thousands of years and perhaps it is in our genes, but it lies in out hands to control whether we want to continue or stop it from taking over our lives. On page 201, it says, “We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators”. Even the author says that we should take matters into our own hands and fight the genes that make us selfish. Except it is very difficult since we usually think in the first person in our heads. We are concerned about what we think and how things will affect us.

Our decisions are mostly influenced by others, which is called an idea meme. This is when something, an idea for example, is transmitted from one brain to another. If one person says something, like Dalai Lama or in my previous blog; John Lennon, then people can be influenced to change. Except there are also people who influence others negatively, which makes it hard for change. Like everything in life, it has its pros and cons.

According to Dawkins, ‘cultural transmission to genetic transmission’ is a rise to how evolution has been formed. What we have learned in our culture is what our genes are based on. For example, currently the food we eat is very different from just twenty years ago. The current generations bodies are not yet accustomed to it and have some negative effects, but I believe that in twenty years, our bodies will be a lot more used to the food and what it contains.

Therefore, I conclude saying that we can create our own future. The only problem is that most people need to be motivated by people who inspire them. Some of those inspirations give the wrong idea, and cause people to make the wrong decisions. I understand that this blog is extremely biased and I give my opinion on something that maybe somebody else does not believe. Except if we all could find a compromise, there would be less selfishness in the world, and the selfish gene would stop replicating. 

Can We Change?

What I got from this chapter was that Dawkins tries to explain that there are two ways that animals gain a selfish benefit from warning others. The first one is the ‘cave’ theory and the other one is the ‘never break ranks’ theory.

Dawkins uses birds as an example for both theories. For the cave theory, he says that one bird can warn other birds that there is a hawk approaching. In order to keep them quite and make sure the hawk does not see the bird that noticed him first, through the other birds’ noises.

The second theory ‘never break ranks’ theory is about how birds “manipulate” their flock to do something together so that the one bird who notices the hawk, will not be standing out and at greater risk of being attacked by the hawk. This one is extremely selfish since other birds are at greater risk of being attacked by the hawk than the original bird that saw it first.

Then Dawkins says that over time, birds have formed a ‘singing’ voice. The noise birds make, that sounds like music, is actually a way of warning their flock about danger. He states that this gene has evolved over time and has perfected. This connects back to the two theories he explained. It is known as the ‘selfish gene’ because using this gene has made birds only looks out for themselves.

It seems as if birds are just like humans, “every man for himself”. Obviously, this does not apply to everybody, but there is a big connection between the two animals. At one point or during certain moments in our lives we think how we will be affected by something. People are selfish in different ways, but it is hard to believe that somebody says “I always think about how my actions affect others before I think about how they affect me”. 

The Truth Behind Our Knowledge and Wisdom

All of a sudden, there is a big change in what Dawkins is saying, on page 23 he states, “No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch. A body is the gene’s way of preserving the genes unaltered.” This quote is very interesting and the ideas he throws out there take a while to understand, but then you can connect or relate to his thoughts.

The first part where he says that ‘not one jot will be passed on to your children’ is true because you create your knowledge and wisdom with society and the environment. If your children grow up in a different country with a different kind of society, then their thoughts and views on life can be completely different from yours. For example, children who are adopted. They have never met their biological parents, yet they have the same knowledge and wisdom. That seems a bit odd because during their childhood and further on in their life, they will be influenced by their surroundings and not by their genes that run around in their body. Each new generation does ‘start from scratch’. They are free to absorb any new information, hence each generation being different from their parents.

I really like how he says that our body ‘preserves’ the genes that have not changed. It makes you feel powerful and important because you are keeping something that no one else has, alive. Genes are using our body to stay alive and keep the unaltered genes safe, and we should take care of our body so that they will not become extinct. That is why we are their ‘survival machines’ because what ever happens to us happens to them.

When I read the quote, I looked at it for a minute and let the information sink in. It takes a while to understand or connect to, or perhaps you will never feel any of that, but to me the quote said something interesting and true. We do ‘preserve’ the genes in our body and wisdom and knowledge cannot pass on to other generations through genes. 

Replicators: the beginning of mankind

This chapter is all about replicators and how they constantly replicate from one another and how they have become a part of our lives. They seem to have a big impact on us and we have a big impact on them because we are their survival machines. We keep their legacy alive.

Dawkins has his own opinions and is not afraid to express them. Regardless of critics who will disagree with him, like me, he did publish this book. His point of view about genes is that, “They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind…” (20). Honestly, I disagree with what he says because our genes do not define who we are or will become as an adult, unless they can predict the future. Our genes are part of who we are and our personality is the rest. It is true that our genes create part of our personality, but we try our hardest to change it. For example: a person who cannot control their anger can probably get that from their parents, but then they try to get counseling to control it. We try to modify ourselves so that we feel a sense of control. Everybody tries to have power over his or her body and mind, which I think is a gene that everybody has.

On page 15, it says, “At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident,” and I feel that sometimes the most creative things in life happen accidentally. This molecule, artwork, which we never plan, or failures are examples of things we do not purposely do or create, but seem to happen. Though failing is pushing it, sometimes something good comes of it.

This chapter was interesting and the viewpoints Dawkins states are agreeable yet disagreeable. He uses many good examples to clarify what he is talking about and explains what he says.