Le città invisibili
1972
- fiction
- ficción
- explorers
- kings and rulers
- exploradores
- tarot
- reyes y soberanos
- exploration
- urbanism
- literature
The story
"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating fine details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take.
What it’s like
Short, jewel-like paragraphs, each one a single city rendered in a few precise images: water pipes climbing where walls should be, a web of cords strung between rooftops, a metropolis of mirrors and glass. The prose is elegant and unhurried, with a dreamy, faintly formal voice that reads like a travel diary kept by someone who is half-awake. The sensory world is built from light, stone, water and weather, and the cities feel both vivid and provisional, like something you can almost see through. The mood is wistful and contemplative, with a quiet undercurrent of longing and the pleasures of imagining places you will never visit. Its pacing is leisurely and circular: dip in for ten minutes or read it straight through over a slow afternoon, and it rewards either. There is no violence, no gore and no sexual content; the tension is intellectual and emotional rather than physical. It suits a rainy Sunday, a bedside book for winter nights, or a slow, reflective read for anyone who loves architecture, maps, or the idea of memory and desire shaping a place. It is for readers who enjoy fable, philosophical wonder and language that lingers.
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