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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Some of the most gorgeous prose I've ever read.
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
Less of a story than a discourse on what cities can mean to people it nethertheless entertains because of the imagination put into each city Marco describes to Kublai and because of the extremely well written translation.
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Spellbound. I am utterly spellbound. What a beautiful book!
You take long voyages into an energetic mind. Every city is made of connections and reflections and then refractions of those reflections. The mind is an endless universe of possible destinations.
"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."
I mean.... Seriously...
That's something you can live by.
You take long voyages into an energetic mind. Every city is made of connections and reflections and then refractions of those reflections. The mind is an endless universe of possible destinations.
"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."
I mean.... Seriously...
That's something you can live by.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
?????
William Faulkner's 1932 [b:Light in August|10979|Light in August|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1355360091l/10979._SY75_.jpg|1595500] gave us this brain-twister about the delicate process that awares us to truth: Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. Once upon a time I heard a high schooler repeating this to himself, trying so hard to figure out what the heck ol Bill meant that it glued itself to my own brain and I spent the next ten years thinking about it.
Italo Calvino's 1972 Invisible Cities gave me soliloquies on ~memory~ and ~desire~ and whatever the heck a thin city or a continuous city is but mostly just awful, interminable boredom. The difference is Faulkner's ramblings make delicious sense. I am convinced that Invisible Cities, on the other hand, was written by injecting random adjectives and nouns between a general grammar for paragraphs on end and, what's worse, gaslighting people into believing it experimental genius.
You could tear out entire pages and the next reader would never know it. Or switch them around at will and, again, none would be the wiser. In fact you could read it backwards and it'd be the same book. Yes, one could throw this book at a wall and read just the section it opened to and effectively have read it all with less headache and maybe even some appreciation.
How this book fails to end with Kublai Khan employing Marco Polo to torture prisoners with his flowery city-talk is the only real question I have.
William Faulkner's 1932 [b:Light in August|10979|Light in August|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1355360091l/10979._SY75_.jpg|1595500] gave us this brain-twister about the delicate process that awares us to truth: Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. Once upon a time I heard a high schooler repeating this to himself, trying so hard to figure out what the heck ol Bill meant that it glued itself to my own brain and I spent the next ten years thinking about it.
Italo Calvino's 1972 Invisible Cities gave me soliloquies on ~memory~ and ~desire~ and whatever the heck a thin city or a continuous city is but mostly just awful, interminable boredom. The difference is Faulkner's ramblings make delicious sense. I am convinced that Invisible Cities, on the other hand, was written by injecting random adjectives and nouns between a general grammar for paragraphs on end and, what's worse, gaslighting people into believing it experimental genius.
You could tear out entire pages and the next reader would never know it. Or switch them around at will and, again, none would be the wiser. In fact you could read it backwards and it'd be the same book. Yes, one could throw this book at a wall and read just the section it opened to and effectively have read it all with less headache and maybe even some appreciation.
How this book fails to end with Kublai Khan employing Marco Polo to torture prisoners with his flowery city-talk is the only real question I have.
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Im like marco polo