Louder Than Words

Italo Calvino could have written the book Invisible Cities in a much simpler way. He could have written directly what he wanted the reader to know, but he was aware how detrimental this would be to the book. By representing everything that is pertinent to life and the world with cities he created a rich allegory. “Returning from the missions on which Kublai sent him, the ingenious foreigner improvised pantomimes that the sovereign had to interpret.”(p.21) Italo Calvino being Marco Polo, the ingenious foreigner, and us the readers being Kublai Khan, we assume set roles. In this relationship Calvino provides us with emblems and it’s our job to decipher them.

“The descriptions of cities Marco Polo visited had this virtue: you could wander through them in thought, become lost, stop and enjoy the cool air, or run off.”(p.38) When we read Calvino’s descriptions we become engaged and are forced to reflect. The book doesn’t express Calvino’s exact opinion. Instead we read his words and are guided to create our own thoughts. When we read each idea we mold it according to our own experiences, memories and lives. “It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”(p.135)

At the end Kublai Khan and Marco Polo played a chess game that represented what the cities had symbolized throughout the book. As they started to play Kublai analyzed the game and he, “arrived at the extreme operation: the definitive conquest, of which the empire’s multiform treasures were only illusory envelopes. It was reduced to a square of planed wood: nothingness.” However, when he mentioned this conclusion to Marco Polo, “the quantity of things that could be read in a little piece of smooth and empty wood overwhelmed Kublai; Polo was already talking about ebony forests, about rafts laden with logs that come down the rivers, of docks, of women at the windows.” Like Kublai the reader might start to believe that after removing all the pieces from the chessboard, which represent people and objects, the board becomes a meaningless slab of wood, which represents the world. However, through Polo’s words Calvino demonstrates that this is not the case at all. The apparently simple slab of wood can go on to hold a new meaning all together. Maybe it will no longer be the setting for the game’s figurines, but it continues nonetheless. By talking about ebony forests and rafts carrying logs down a river he demonstrates how there is more than one way to see a given object. The chessboard didn’t have to be purposeful OR meaningless, it could form any part of an array of different items. 

As for the numerous ideas conveyed through the cities’ descriptions each one has it's own specific value. However, at the end there’s one last idea that seems to tie all the other ones together. Polo says: “There are two ways to escape suffering…Accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it…[or] seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”(p.165) We as the readers are well versed in the idea that the world holds endless amounts of evils. In fact, this idea has probably been even further enforced in our minds after reading this book. However, Calvino gives us a final challenge one that goes much farther than just reflecting and understanding his cities. He invites us to take this knowledge and either take one of two paths. The first is simple, we can become perverse and evil, just like the world we live in. He doesn’t condemn it since those that choose it could potentially justify it by saying that they are simply adhering to their surroundings. Yet, he clearly shows that the second option is riskier and much more complicated than the first. The second option consists of searching for the good in the world, finding it and propagating it. Calvino leaves us on this note, with an idea that not only ties everything together, but stays resounding in our minds, louder than words. 

The Earth is Our City

In Invisible Cities we have understood that Marco Polo (who is really the writer Italo Calvino) is speaking to Kublai Khan who represents us as readers. In earlier blogs we had come to the conclusion that all the cities he spoke about were fragments of his memories and experiences, everything that made up his life. However, maybe the cities go even farther and are actually descriptions of Earth’s memories and experiences seen through the eyes of Marco Polo the explorer (therefore, meaning through the eyes of Italo Calvino the writer). These cities many times deal with problems that are reminiscent of our own. “Isaura, a city that moves entirely upward.” (p.20) In this city a subterranean lake stunts lateral growth because the city can only extend to the edges of the lake. This symbolizes the way we as a population are restricted from development. Social, racial and monetary constraints are real issues that chain people to rooted spots. They have amounted overtime and have become as permanent as the lake in Isaura. Although there might be exceptions, overall the modern-day limits that encase our society have stopped true evolvement. Instead, we are forced to grow upward in the sense that we can only sprout in the already established ways. Propagating from the same spot in a predictable and permanent manner.

“Every Morning the people [of Lenonia] wake between fresh sheets, wash with just-unwrapped cakes of soap, wear brand-new clothing…[it’s] the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity…A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains.” (p. 114) Our mentality is very similar to the inhabitants of Lenonia. Of course Calvino’s description is exaggerated, but either way we might as well be discarding utensils after one use. The speed in which we pour waste into landfills is alarming. The public has morphed into a consumption machine that is constantly searching for the newest and greatest gadgets. This of course means forgetting of the old and washing it away with the new. These “old” items are left in landfills that are quickly forming indestructible waste mountains. The rate at which we're discarding our waste isn’t sustainable. “The greater its height grows, the more the danger of a landslide looms: a tin can, an old tire, an unraveled wine flask, if it rolls toward Leonia, is enough to bring with it an avalanche of unmated shoes [and] calendars of by gone years.” (p.116) This vicious cycle of dumping previously owned items in exchange of receiving the most recent ones, will be the end of us. The avalanche that Marco Polo speaks about is the same looming environmental catastrophe that we have created and that could easily wipe out humans.

In the excerpts of conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo we see the unraveling of a truth. Polo explains how the exchanges between him and Kublai, “exists only in the shadow of our lowered eyelids.” (p.103) Literally the reading of this book has taken place inside our heads. “Each time we half-close our eyes, in the midst of the din and the throng, we are allowed to withdraw here, dressed in silk kimonos, to ponder what we are seeing and living, to draw conclusions, to contemplate from the distance.”(p.103) This signifies that the reading of this book in our heads is where we can retreat to think and reflect. Our job is to consider all the realities Calvino describes to us in the pages of this book and reflect about our problematic world.

No Past, Present or Future Without Memories

I had thought the cities were carefully differentiated by the details, and then brought together by a much broader overall connection. However, their similarities run much closer then I had previously imagined. “Polo said: ‘Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.’”(p.86) Now everything fits in a much more precise way. All along, the “cities” had really just been describing one city made up of different elements and situations. This discovery about the cities not being separate occurrences also modifies my thoughts on the very meaning of what these cities represent. Although I won’t completely sever with my idea that the cities represent pieces of information that make up a lifetimes worth of knowledge, I do feel the need to modify it. With this new piece of vital information, I think the city descriptions represent the future, past and present.

            The way Marco Polo describes them, is pertinent to his own future, past, and present. This is why Kublai Khan is constantly imagining his own cities, because he wishes to relate Polo’s tales to his own future, past and present. “Now, each city Marco described to him, the Great Khan’s mind set out on its own, and after dismantling the city piece by piece, he reconstructed it in other ways, substituting components, shifting them, inverting them.”(p.43)

            If all the different descriptions lead up to the same city and no matter what order you arrange them in you always come up with the same conclusion, then why bother? Why would Marco Polo go through all the trouble of conceiving each of Venice’s characteristics as a separate city? Why not just lump everything together? Create a continuous description of Venice from cover to cover, no breaks or categories, just one large run-on piece. The reason for this is actually quite simple. For there to be a whole, there must be separate pieces, which calls for each characteristic to be described independently from the others.

            “Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone. ‘But which is the stone that supports the bridge?’ Kublai Khan asks. ‘The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,’ Marco answers, ‘but by the line of the arch that they form.’ Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: ‘Why do you speak to me of the stones? If it is only the arch that matters to me.’ Polo answers: ‘Without stones there is no arch.’ “(p.82) Similarly, without memories there is no past, present or future. Each city description is equally important to the outcome. There’s no single characteristic that is more important than the others. Instead they are all elements laid out like cards on a table that taken together form a whole deck. Each description builds upon the others with no concern for order or importance. Together they create the much more complete image of Venice.

            In other words each separate event adds towards the understanding of Marco’s past, present and future. This is mirrored by Kublai Khan’s attempt to customize and tweak the descriptions so they will amount to his own past, present and future. Consciously or unconsciously we are doing just that. We listen to each one of the characteristics and modify them slightly in order to create a coherent collection of our own memories that together represent our past, present and future.  

Shuffle and Repeat

Italo Calvino lays down patterns every which way. The most general one is a pattern of repetition. The cities Marco Polo visits are categorized under the same constant groups. These are cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and signs, thin cities, trading cities, cities and eyes, cities and names, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, continuous cities and hidden cities. The curious aspect is that different observations can be made about each category. The readers can observe that all cities placed in a certain category deal with the same topic or they can also say that each category leads to the next. One city that is placed in the category cities and memories discusses how, “in the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by...[here] desires are already memories.” (p.8) What was once a desire has morphed into a memory, bringing the story to the next category, cities and desires. Of course the order doesn't necessarily have to be in this way, in fact it can easily be cities and desires and then cities and memories. Yet, the order is arbitrary in their relationship, since it mainly consists of a connection that lets the two blend into one another, and as a result shuffling them does no harm.

So these cities clearly follow a certain type of morphing pattern. Yet, how does this add to the overall understanding of this book? I still believe that the cities combine to form a representation of all the knowledge gained through a lifetime. Therefore, the way in which they're organized represents the main components found within experiences. These include memories, desires, signs, names, deaths, beliefs and ideas. For example in the section cities and the sky it talks about a common perception that refers to heaven and hell. “Suspended in the heavens, there exists another Beersheba, where the city’s most elevated virtues and sentiments are poised, and that if the terrestrial Beersheba will take the celestial one as its model the two cities will become one…they also believe…that another Beersheba exists underground, the receptacle to them, and it is their constant care to erase from the visible Beersheba every tie or resemblance to the lower twin.”(p.111) This idea of mirroring “heaven” and repelling “hell” is a common idea that even when it doesn’t pertain necessarily to religion, it does bring up the human judgment of good versus evil.

Marco Polo goes on to explain, “It is true that the city is accompanied by two projections of itself, one celestial and one infernal; but the citizens are mistaken about their consistency.”(p.112) The theory and idea of heaven and hell is completely valid, however it’s impossible to say with complete certainty what exactly heaven and hell are. Like any other notion, it is simply an idea. Valid for its existence, but many times cannot be fully validated because it’s an opinion not a provable fact.

The categories go on in this fashion, providing many ideas and themes that are pertinent to life. Inspecting them and explaining them through the situations brought up in each city. The ideas and general patterns are reiterated so often that they seem to be on repeat, possibly in an effort to establish each broad notion.

The Pattern

The book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino contains numerous detailed descriptions of cities with interactions between Kublai Khan and his explorer Marco Polo peppered throughout. In these exchanges Kublai Khan is referred to as the emperor who listens intently to Marco Polo’s experiences and adventures. In these situations their relationship is posed as the one that is simultaneously talking place as we read this book. We become Kublai Khan and Italo Calvino becomes Marco Polo, our job as readers is to be the listeners. 

“Only in Marco Polo’s accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites’ gnawing.”(p.6) Here it's understood that Marco Polo’s accounts, in other words Italo Calvino’s book, is unique and has a certain significance that the readers should decipher. The walls and towers mentioned might represent the physical appearance of all the towns Marco Polo speaks about that are bound to disintegrate at some point. However, behind the physicality of all these place there lies a sort of “pattern” that is subtle enough to go by unnoticed.

The readers reach a moment were they wonder, like Kublai Khan, “What is the use, then, of all your [Marco Polo’s] traveling?” (p. 27) Marco Polo answers that more than an actual purpose it’s a process. “Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.” It’s a process of exploring the past, recognizing the lost possible futures, and contemplating the current present. This of course sparks curiosity in the audience because Marco Polo’s traveling is reminiscent of the events in their lives, the adventurous and occurrences they have experienced.

Marco Polo’s reasoning is also significant because it hints back to this “pattern” that readers should uncover as they read the description of all the cities. For now, I think the pattern might be how the cities are each distinct with their unique characteristics, yet somehow still interconnected and therefore the same. “Olinda is certainly not the only city that grows in concentric circles.”(p.129) "All these beauties will already be familiar to the visitor, who has seen them also in other cities."(p.7) Naturally, this then begs the question what exactly do these cities represent? If Kublai Khan’s “empire” is all the knowledge acquired through time and cities make up this empire, then maybe the cities are each individual piece of information that is gained and collectively makes up the empire. Therefore, the fact that they each have distinguished characteristics, yet share an even larger amount of similarities and interconnections, it shows how each piece of information making up the cornucopia of knowledge is the same in value and meaning, while still different as a result of the small details. In fact, he even compares one of the cities to the pattern of a rug. He says, "At first sight nothing seems to resemble Eudoxia less than the design of that carpet...But if you pause and examine it carefully, you become convinced that each place in the carpet corresponds to a place in the city and all the things contained in the city are included in the design, arranged according to their true relationship."(p.96) Patterns can be found in the most unlikely of places. Their arrangement can be justified by close inspection, yet most times the resemblance isn't plainly evident. Thats why it's so vital that the readers pay close attention to Marco Polo, so that they will be able to recognize the intricately arranged pattern written on the pages of Invisible Cities.