欧宝娱乐

...A five star review...

I hate flying. The claustrophobia of it. So usually when I return to Italy after visiting London I catch the train to Paris and then the night train to Venice. That鈥檚 my little extravagance. I catch the night train to Venice and not Florence for one moment. The moment of walking out of the station of Santa Lucia and beholding the Grand Canal. I sit on the steps and let all the activity on the canal wash through me. I鈥檓 not sure why this moment means so much to me. It鈥檚 not a moment I can or even want to explain. I remember a line from a novel I read where a character gazing out at the Grand Canal says, 鈥淚 keep wondering when all this will happen to me.鈥� Perhaps that鈥檚 it, Venice articulates some deep desire we all have or evokes a memory of something that has never quite happened.

Reading this for a second time is a bit like visiting Venice for a second time. A little bit of the magic fades but in compensation you notice lots of wonders you missed the first time. I read it in English this time. Now and again the writing seemed a bit clunky 鈥� 鈥淭he inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here.鈥� That 鈥渋f there is one鈥� is a bit of an eyesore. But it鈥檚 no less clunky in Italian - L'inferno dei viventi non 猫 qualcosa che sar脿; se ce n'猫 uno 鈥� you can鈥檛 blame the translator for translating it word for word instead of trying to improve the fluency of Calvino鈥檚 prose. .

This is probably the greatest book ever written about tourism, about the urge to escape the confines of where we live. Essentially Marco Polo is a tourist. And we all as tourists need an audience to show the images of our travels to. Kublai Khan is the audience, the vicarious tourist. He鈥檚 also a warlord, and by inference every warlord intent on conquering new territory is a tourist and every tourist is a warlord in embryo. We all want to conquer new lands. We鈥檙e all hungry for new discoveries, new exotic possessions. But we all eventually have to go home. Calvino is constantly making the point that every city is essentially what we bring to it. He鈥檚 brilliant at capturing the deep division of perspective between the tourist and long term inhabitant. Florentines are famous for never looking at the city鈥檚 monuments. It鈥檚 become how they distinguish themselves from the tourist. They turn a blind eye. They stare at their phones while walking across Piazza della Signoria. Venice has almost been turned into a romance theme park 鈥� it鈥檚 called upon to provide a standard collection of microwaved emotions as efficiently as an atm provides cash. One of the wonders of Venice now is the people who live there. You need them to understand something of the true nature of the city. To get behind the postcard fa莽ade. There are times when it鈥檚 much more rewarding to watch a man bump a barrow down the steps of a nondescript bridge than gaze blankly at the fa莽ade of San Marco. Sometimes it鈥檚 these kinds of details that bring a place alive for us. Calvino鈥檚 deployment of these telling details is probably this book鈥檚 most stellar achievement and what makes it such a joy to read.

...An alternative four star review...

Calvino is one of the sacred cows of literature. He鈥檚 one of those writers who we鈥檙e tempted to pretend to like more than we really do, like Proust and Joyce, for fear of revealing some intellectual inadequacy. Interestingly for me, Virginia Woolf still isn鈥檛 one of these scared cows. When people don鈥檛 like Woolf they have more of a license to vent their scorn. It still hasn鈥檛 been officially recognised that Woolf is a great writer, by men at any rate. Often when there鈥檚 a list of the best novels ever written Woolf won鈥檛 feature at all, or if she does it鈥檒l be her lesser but easier books like Mrs Dalloway or A Room of One's Own that makes the list. (To be fair her genius is recognised in Italy and France; it鈥檚 in the UK she tends to divide opinion.)

So Invisible Cities vs The Waves. Invisible Cities is absolutely brilliant and inspired for the first fifty pages. But then it wanes a bit, gets a bit repetitive. Seems odd to say about a book of only 145 pages but might it have been better had it been a bit shorter? The contents page has the appearance of some mathematical formula, like a star map, so perhaps there鈥檚 some hidden genius in the design of this book. But if there is I didn鈥檛 get it and nor did anyone else judging by the few reviews I鈥檝e read. It felt to me like the number of invisible cities we get was random and some were uninspired. If you took a single page out of The Waves it would collapse. You could take ten pages out of Invisible Cities without it being noticed. Also now and again Calvino is perhaps guilty of the kind of vacuous platitudes you鈥檒l find strewn throughout the pages of The Alchemist. 鈥淔alsehood is never in words; it is in things.鈥� That kind of thing. Looks great if you skim read it; becomes only a half-truth if you stop to think about it. So for me, The Waves wins over Invisible Cities in a heavyweight wrestling match.

...Back to tourism...

Once upon a time the world was getting smaller. Now it鈥檚 getting bigger again as terrorism creates more and more no go areas. You could say terrorism is a war on tourism. It鈥檚 diminishing one of the biggest cultural phenomenon of our times. That鈥檚 probably the most significant change terrorism is making to the world. It鈥檚 making us think twice about travelling. I watched a heartbreaking report from Aleppo last night 鈥揳 once magical town that none of us will ever see again. How long before it becomes one of Calvino鈥檚 Invisible Cities?