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.