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A review by tui_la_dao
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Calvino writes like no other, his imagination and description is so rich and fascinating, I could not imagine reading a book this abstract about just cities (on a surface level) or concept of cities that Marco Polo has visited and get pretty hooked to it. Cities & Names chapters are so fascinating and Cities & The Dead chapters were a bit easier to read but interesting nonetheless. At the beginning of the book, I wish that these cities exist so I could visit, towards the end of the book, I realize that these cities are right here, depends on how we live, see, perceive and experience them, they transform, take on different names and images and structures, resemble one another, and so on. Did you travel and think these thoughts?
IRENE
"For that matter, it is of slight importance: if you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes.
...
There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene."
ADELMA
"I thought: "You reached a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.
...
"Now they will straigten up and I will recognize them," I thought, with impatience and fear ... I was assailed by unexpected faces, reappearing from far away, staring at me as if demanding recognition, as if to recognize me, as if they had already recognized me. Perhaps, for each of them, I also resembled someone who was dead ..."
"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."
IRENE
"For that matter, it is of slight importance: if you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes.
...
There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene."
ADELMA
"I thought: "You reached a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.
...
"Now they will straigten up and I will recognize them," I thought, with impatience and fear ... I was assailed by unexpected faces, reappearing from far away, staring at me as if demanding recognition, as if to recognize me, as if they had already recognized me. Perhaps, for each of them, I also resembled someone who was dead ..."
"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."