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Uday's Reviews > Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities
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"On the day when I know all the emblems, " he asked Marco, "shall I be able to possess my empire, at last?"
And the Venetian answered : "Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems."
If, through several permutations and combinations, you can hint at the gap between what a human eye perceives, and the thing that he sets out to perceive, as artfully as Calvino does, the enterprise deserves not only justification, but demands a celebration. In a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan (Are they conversing? What signs? What language? What gestures? What methods?), several myths and architecture, one influencing the other are discussed at length, but with a depth which crosses through emotions, memories, and superstition - any of which you never thought would really inform you about a 'city'. The conversation is as entrancing as a Romantic poet's dream two hundred years ago, in which too, a 'pleasure-dome' is the subject. You may get through this and say, but did these sentences between Marco and Khan really spoken? "It's the thought that counts", Calvino would say.
And the Venetian answered : "Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems."
If, through several permutations and combinations, you can hint at the gap between what a human eye perceives, and the thing that he sets out to perceive, as artfully as Calvino does, the enterprise deserves not only justification, but demands a celebration. In a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan (Are they conversing? What signs? What language? What gestures? What methods?), several myths and architecture, one influencing the other are discussed at length, but with a depth which crosses through emotions, memories, and superstition - any of which you never thought would really inform you about a 'city'. The conversation is as entrancing as a Romantic poet's dream two hundred years ago, in which too, a 'pleasure-dome' is the subject. You may get through this and say, but did these sentences between Marco and Khan really spoken? "It's the thought that counts", Calvino would say.
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Quotes Uday Liked
“When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.”
― Invisible Cities
― Invisible Cities
“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 possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
― Invisible Cities
― Invisible Cities
Reading Progress
March 21, 2016
– Shelved
March 21, 2016
– Shelved as:
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March 23, 2016
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Started Reading
March 23, 2016
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Cecily
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rated it 5 stars
Jul 20, 2016 02:09PM
I hadn't even considered what language they might be using!
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