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.