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davybaby 's review for:
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino
It only occurred to me fairly recently what a beautiful thing a good translation is. Beautiful writing in one language is difficult enough, but to interpret into a new language and create beauty is just as wonderful. Here, the beauty is in the language, but also in the surreal and metaphorical imagery of the book.
Invisible Cities is built of Marco Polo's tales to Kublai Khan. He tells of strange, fantastic cities that are clearly impossible and yet oddly familiar. A city that is repeated all over the world, surrounding every airport, to greet you with sameness at the end of each flight. A city built by a series of architects, trying to fashion the perfect space where the one that got away, cannot.
Each city has a perfect surreal logic that gives the reading experience a dreamlike feel. You drift out of one and into another, without any connection other than beautiful absurdity.
Over time it becomes clear that every city in the book is Venice, but could also be any other city in the world. Each city is a perfect reflection of some element of cityness, and each one feels hauntingly familiar. The cities also come to represent more, standing in as structures of memory, desire, language, and humanity.
It's a beautiful book, and one that I recommend to everyone, city-slicker and bumpkin alike.
...
On an unrelated note, it was infuriating when I reached the section on a city whose description was stunningly like the subject of a story of mine. There's something discouraging about stumbling upon fiction with close parallels to my own when it's this well done.
Invisible Cities is built of Marco Polo's tales to Kublai Khan. He tells of strange, fantastic cities that are clearly impossible and yet oddly familiar. A city that is repeated all over the world, surrounding every airport, to greet you with sameness at the end of each flight. A city built by a series of architects, trying to fashion the perfect space where the one that got away, cannot.
Each city has a perfect surreal logic that gives the reading experience a dreamlike feel. You drift out of one and into another, without any connection other than beautiful absurdity.
Over time it becomes clear that every city in the book is Venice, but could also be any other city in the world. Each city is a perfect reflection of some element of cityness, and each one feels hauntingly familiar. The cities also come to represent more, standing in as structures of memory, desire, language, and humanity.
It's a beautiful book, and one that I recommend to everyone, city-slicker and bumpkin alike.
...
On an unrelated note, it was infuriating when I reached the section on a city whose description was stunningly like the subject of a story of mine. There's something discouraging about stumbling upon fiction with close parallels to my own when it's this well done.