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A review by ethorwitz
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
5.0
When Marco Polo first meets Kublai Khan they do not speak the same language. Of the many hundreds of languages in the Khan's empire they don't have even one in common. Instead Marco Polo uses a number of small objects to indicate certain ideas, and a dialogue using these symbols is born. Eventually the two of them develop a lingua franca of whatever words in common they pick up and their own mutual experience with each other. This communication is forever anchored around the initial experience with the objects.
"Each piece of information about a place recalled to the emperor’s mind that first gesture or object which Marco designated the place. The new fact received a meaning from that emblem and also added to the emblem a new meaning. Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms."
Guuuuuh that's so fucking rad.
"Each piece of information about a place recalled to the emperor’s mind that first gesture or object which Marco designated the place. The new fact received a meaning from that emblem and also added to the emblem a new meaning. Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms."
Guuuuuh that's so fucking rad.