Take a photo of a barcode or cover
clarkness 's review for:
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino
I've been thinking about this book quite a bit since I finished it and I have decided that they way I choose to think about it is as a story about the infinity of possibility. It is, of course, a collection of descriptions of how a city could be and how a people could be and how the two shape each other. In that regard, my favorite passage is:
This said, it is pointless trying to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.
In other words, do we live our lives in a place that mutates along with us, ultimately becoming whatever we choose to project into our environment, or do we live our lives in a place that lacks flexibility, either crushing our humanity or becoming subsumed by it until the city itself is too damaged to live in? Or even more simply, are we choosing as individuals and as a broader people to live in the realm of infinite possibility and openness or are we choosing to close ourselves off to the idea of change, the invisible cities out on the horizon yet to be dreamed? This idea translates to macroscopic and microscopic views of the world. How do we run our country? How do we run our lives? Each of these forms can be filled in a limitless number of ways. We are rich with possibilities! It's a shame we don't celebrate it more.
This said, it is pointless trying to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.
In other words, do we live our lives in a place that mutates along with us, ultimately becoming whatever we choose to project into our environment, or do we live our lives in a place that lacks flexibility, either crushing our humanity or becoming subsumed by it until the city itself is too damaged to live in? Or even more simply, are we choosing as individuals and as a broader people to live in the realm of infinite possibility and openness or are we choosing to close ourselves off to the idea of change, the invisible cities out on the horizon yet to be dreamed? This idea translates to macroscopic and microscopic views of the world. How do we run our country? How do we run our lives? Each of these forms can be filled in a limitless number of ways. We are rich with possibilities! It's a shame we don't celebrate it more.