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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A strange but charming story, or sequence of stories. Anyone who makes traveling or cities an important part of their lives will likely appreciate this book on some level.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
changed my life u guys …
1) ''This---some say---confirms the hypothesis that each man bears in his mind a city made only of differences, a city without figures and without form, and the individual cities fill it up.''
2) '''It has neither name nor place. I shall repeat the reason why I was describing it to you: from the number of imaginable cities we must exclude those whose elements are assembled without a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse. With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.'''
3) '''Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,' Polo said. 'Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.'''
4) ''Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong and their figures are unable to describe the heavens, or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters.''
2) '''It has neither name nor place. I shall repeat the reason why I was describing it to you: from the number of imaginable cities we must exclude those whose elements are assembled without a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse. With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.'''
3) '''Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,' Polo said. 'Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.'''
4) ''Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong and their figures are unable to describe the heavens, or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters.''
can confidently say that all 163 pages went right over my head! what was this about!
Reminds me of the Alchemist in its brevity and ineffable mysteriousness. Reading this book feels like dreaming an endless dream, entering a landscape where the physics and rules of reality are unfamiliar, but yet retains the texture of truth. Calvino's Marco Polo tells tales of cities from his travels to Kublai Khan in an echo of Arabian nights, and the books shifts from Polo's accounts to conversations between Polo and the Khan.
The cities described seem to come out of a Jungian dreamscape of distilled truths of humanity, Despina - the platonic border city, Octavia - precariousness and mortality manifested. Calvino's Polo declares - "Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else." The imagery Calvino conjures is striking. Eusapia the city with an upper city and a lower mirrored city of the dead, with skeletons going about their banal business in the earth.
However, I was more drawn to the dialogue between Polo and the Khan, conversations that are meditations on tricky ideas of reality, myth, memory, possession, past, future, truth, facsimile.
What does it all mean? It is tempting to interpret some concrete thread of coherent meaning, but Calvino warns us:
Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms. “On the day when I know all the emblems,” he asked Marco, “shall I be able to possess my empire, at last?” And the Venetian answered: “Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems.”
The cities described seem to come out of a Jungian dreamscape of distilled truths of humanity, Despina - the platonic border city, Octavia - precariousness and mortality manifested. Calvino's Polo declares - "Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else." The imagery Calvino conjures is striking. Eusapia the city with an upper city and a lower mirrored city of the dead, with skeletons going about their banal business in the earth.
However, I was more drawn to the dialogue between Polo and the Khan, conversations that are meditations on tricky ideas of reality, myth, memory, possession, past, future, truth, facsimile.
What does it all mean? It is tempting to interpret some concrete thread of coherent meaning, but Calvino warns us:
Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms. “On the day when I know all the emblems,” he asked Marco, “shall I be able to possess my empire, at last?” And the Venetian answered: “Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems.”
I think to fully appreciate this book, you should approach it like you would a book of poetry: flip through the pages, and read only the passages that catch your mood.
Unfortunately, I approached it like a novel... It has an interesting premise, and starts out well enough, but I admit that I got bored of it by the end. The book is basically a collection of one or two page descriptions of imaginary cities, the idea being that Marco Polo is describing the cities to Kublai Khan. Really, the book seems to be somewhat of a poetry / novel hybrid. One after another, fantastic and bizarre cities are described. Some of the cities are really quite inventive. But after around the 30th city (the book has more than 50!), I just got kind of tired of it.
Unfortunately, I approached it like a novel... It has an interesting premise, and starts out well enough, but I admit that I got bored of it by the end. The book is basically a collection of one or two page descriptions of imaginary cities, the idea being that Marco Polo is describing the cities to Kublai Khan. Really, the book seems to be somewhat of a poetry / novel hybrid. One after another, fantastic and bizarre cities are described. Some of the cities are really quite inventive. But after around the 30th city (the book has more than 50!), I just got kind of tired of it.
"The only author I've read that gives Borges a run for his money in regards to the amount of parsable, philosophical, dreamy mindfuckery he can shove inside a single page. Kind of makes you wish all books were like this."