Invisible Cities

The novel Invisible Cities has a story line, but it is somewhat hidden between detailed descriptions of what seems to be presented as random cities. Once Italo Calvino has finished all of these descriptions, his intent is to wrap everything up. The novel as a whole can be interpreted in many ways depending on personal experiences and previous thoughts. Calvino presents the final italics in this same way. It seems to be a straightforward conversation between Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, but individual readers are each able to take away a different aspect depending on their point of view. I thought this was interesting because some of the cities discussed (Like Cities of the Dead 2) expressed that previous memories and experiences affect how we see things and how we interpret meanings.

Throughout Invisible Cities, Kublai Kahn searches for the perfect city, and constantly questions what he must do in order to achieve a perfect kingdom. Marco Polo concludes their conversation by stating that there is no perfect city. “…and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city, made of fragments mixed with the rest, of instants separated by intervals, of signals one sends out, not knowing who receives them,” explains Polo. One of his final statements to Kahn is that there is no Utopia or New Atlantis, but rather pieces of cities that are great mixed with pieces of cities that are flawed. There is no perfect city, but each city has fragments to be proud of.