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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Invisible Cities is amazing for many reasons, and one of them, I think, is that it brings cities alive without turning them into people. It reveals the changing, living nature of cities as “beings” with pulse, with breath, but they are not humans. This is rare. Rarely can authors bring something to life without humanizing them, and this is an issue because humans are not the only things capable of becoming! Calvino’s cities are not alive because they are like people; they are alive because they are cities. That city–which we previously thought stagnant and indifferent to the complexities, the ups and downs of our lives–is revealed as, in fact, a process as well; the city forms and breaks connections, changing, escaping the bounds of identity and overflowing the mold that is the very human-like name it is given. How Deleuzian! One gets the feeling of solving a little puzzle with each city to discover the logic that ties it together, but there is always a kind of flaw, a contradiction in this logic, that gives way to the city’s unraveling but also its re-raveling.
My first Calvino. I love how the reality of this exercise slowly unfurls, both from the details of all of the cities that are made in short passages, against the reality of what this book actually is, as the Khan reveals later on. Feels Borgesian in the absurdity of some of the cities that are come up with, but resolves itself gorgeously. I understand why this is a classic. Absolutely worth reading through at least once in your life.
Invisible Cities feels like a series of dreams where you're jumping through surrealist paintings of various cities (Super Mario 64 style, really got inspired by my roommate with that reference)... I kind of had more to write, but overall it was a quick and very relatable read. A lot of the cities described in the book I could draw parallels to how I perceive cities and New York City specifically. It really got me itching to draw again and sketch out all these cities, so I might add more to this review as I reread the stories in order to illustrate them. 5 starts for making me want to draw again after so long.
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
I was tricked by how skinny this book is into thinking it would be a quick read; it was not! Incredibly dense and absolutely stunning, feels like it contains everything that has ever needed to be said and will ever need to be said, but I can't begin to say anything intelligent about it.
Beautiful descriptions, very imaginative and well constructed narrative through random images
Something about Calvino's writing is so amusing and novel to me! I really enjoyed Invisible Cities. It was a much faster read than If on a Winter's Night, but almost over too soon! looking forward to reading more of his work. Loved his various city concepts.
"Arriving at each new city the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer posess lies in wait for you in foreign, unposessed places."
"You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours."
"Arriving at each new city the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer posess lies in wait for you in foreign, unposessed places."
"You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours."
Interesting read. I don’t really know how to judge this book; at some points, it intrigued me greatly, at others I would just glaze over. I will now tell you about the city of ideas, many of which are great, many of which are not.
