4thace reviewed Invisible cities by Italo Calvino
Capsule descriptions of dozens of bizarre cities
5 stars
This little book takes the form of very short sections a page or two long describing either the frame story of a meeting between Kublai Khan and explorer Marco Polo who describes his travels through Central asia, or the fanciful cities he claims to have found there. These are titled with enigmatic tags such as "Cities and memory," "Cities and signs," "Thin cities," "Continuous cities" and the like. Each place is dominated by a single dream-like feature governing its citizens. Some come off as fantasy, others so dark as to constitute horror, while still others concern themselves with some odd philosophical point. There is no plot, not even in the frame story sections, no single theme, and the two named characters are given only the slightest of personal qualities. I would say that this is less a novel or series of short stories than a literary construction with fabulistic features. …
This little book takes the form of very short sections a page or two long describing either the frame story of a meeting between Kublai Khan and explorer Marco Polo who describes his travels through Central asia, or the fanciful cities he claims to have found there. These are titled with enigmatic tags such as "Cities and memory," "Cities and signs," "Thin cities," "Continuous cities" and the like. Each place is dominated by a single dream-like feature governing its citizens. Some come off as fantasy, others so dark as to constitute horror, while still others concern themselves with some odd philosophical point. There is no plot, not even in the frame story sections, no single theme, and the two named characters are given only the slightest of personal qualities. I would say that this is less a novel or series of short stories than a literary construction with fabulistic features. I feel as though the author's intent is to dazzle the reader with the extreme variety of minimalist settings that might have something to say when taken all together about the breadth of human imagination. I never felt that I wanted any of the little sections to be expanded into a proper story itself. Instead, this book presents itself as a travel guide to a nonexistent region that streams by the reader with the speed of someone clicking on a remote. The only way these cities resemble our own is the way they contain people of types we recognize, preying on one another, suffering, wrapped in delusions, working and desiring and trying to make sense of their baffling circumstances they are to weak and confused to escape.
