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?