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.