Invisible Cities

1. How would you characterize the structure of Calvino’s Invisible Cities?Does it seem to fit into your definition of a “novel”? Why or why not?   Describe its form and consider the way it develops our understanding of urban space.

I think the structure is rigid and casual. It has one form of organization, which is the transcript between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, but at the same time there are brief interludes of other short stories.

Each story is too short to be considered a novel, but when it comes to the end, one can come to the conclusion that he has read a novel. The fact in that each story creates one large story transforms it from short stories to one novel.

I think the development affects our understanding of urban space in that it reveals that one space is not simply one singular trait that represents it as a whole. In fact, one space is a combination of small stories that create one larger story. They do not necessarily happen in one order. Each story seem to be happening at the same time. Urban spaces have similar characteristics. It reminds us that each space has a story happening in each moment. Its use of space does not necessarily determine the space itself, because it is interchangeable. We make it what we want it to be.

 

2. The cities Marco Polo describes fall into eleven categories (e.g. “Cities and Memory,” “Cities and Desire”). How are these categories reflected in their descriptions? What connections can you make between cities that fall under the same category?

In the cities, each have a different topic in which the characters do something related to the title. An example could be the man in the city of Diomira, where he experiences the space differently after a period of time. In which, his nostalgia relates to the cities and memories category. This is relevant to the other stories as well. Another example would be Zobeide, in the category of cities and desires. The men in the story are infatuated with one girl who they all saw one time. In order to capture this girl, they created trails from the first moment they saw this girl. Not only this, but they designed a system of walls and such to capture this fugitive. They draw similar connections in the topic that they are under.

 

•               A dialogue (between Polo and Kublai Khan) begins and ends each section. How do they function in the work? How do they frame and/or inform each section?
  The dialogue provides a sense of grounding in the novel. It acts as a framework in that, each interlude pieces together the final understanding of what the dialogue is talking about. The cities are organized in a way that it weaves together. In the end we find out that the cities that they are talking about is not multiple cities, but one city.
   

•                   Do the cities Polo describes have a temporal or spatial locus? How does this inform your reading of the cities?
  I think they provide both a temporal and spatial locus. Depending on the cities, each may refer to either. For example, in the city of memories, there is a focus on temporal space. In which, the characters embrace the past, present, or future. This can be seen in the Cities of Memories. Spatial focus is more relevant to the cities with focuses on the spatial quality. The city of signs draw much focus on the special qualities in place. Some cities may include both. In the city of Zobeide, a city of desire, the characters are infatuated with a woman they once saw. They created a new city based on a collaborative map they created to capture this figure they once saw.
   

• In his description of “Olivia,” one of the “Cities and Signs,” Polo says a city should never be “confused with the words that describe it” even though there may be a connection between the two (61). How would you interpret this statement, and how does this inform your reading?
  I would think this comment is saying that, although one space has certain connotations, it does not make the space so. There are some mutual qualities in how some may describe this city, but it does not mean for certain that this space is what it is defined as. Space is very subjective. Depending on the person, I would think each space means something else entirely to different people.

• Polo says, “[c]ities, like dreams are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspective deceitful, and everything conceals something else” (44).  How does this inform your understanding of cities, in general, and Polo’s concept of the city specifically?
  I think this is straightforward in the sense that each city is created with many things, not just one singular thing. Each story told only create one section or portion of the city. When one steps backwards, they begin to see the entire picture. Sections of the stories told are woven together to show one big picture of what a city truly is. It is never one singular thing. Cities are created by the inhabitants, which is why cities have multiple intentions. In the end, each generation create one city with many interwoven layers of definition. It is not just one big woven piece of history, but it also has layers of stories.
   

• Calvino summarized Invisible Cities as a book that offers more questions than solutions. He also maintains, in his essay “Exactitude” that it is the book
   
  in which I managed to say most . . . because I was able to concentrate all my reflections, experiments, and conjectures on a single symbol [the city]; and also because I built up a many faceted structure in which each brief text is close to the others in a series that does not imply logical sequence or a hierarchy, but a network in which one can follow multiple routes and draw multiple, ramified conclusions. (103)
   
  What kinds of questions does the book raise for you and what networks of connections  and conclusions can you draw from its texts?
   
  I think it is interesting that he focused on certain aspects of a city and wrote about it so elegantly. I am curious about the general writing and how he placed the sequence for the cities that he wrote about. How do they follow this strict order, yet not an actual order at the same time.
  It seems that the networks of connection do not have to occur in a logical order or tell one singular story that represents one large place. In fact each story tell of one singular place. It is almost as if each story is occurring at the same time and the reader explores this city as it is frozen in time.
   
                 What connections can you make between any of the work we've looked at in class so far? Be specific.
   
  De Certeau's A Walk in the City, in which the narrator explores the towering sky scrapers in a disconnected way reminds me of these cities. De Certeau talks about the skyscrapers that were built in the city in a similar way to Invisible Cities.  De Certeau speaks fleetingly, which may lead the eader to think that he is speaking of many other things, but in fact he is talking about one city and the skyscrapers built within. We can understand that the city is not just one place that can be described by a few words, but a city that is woven with many stories. There are layers and layers of history in each portion.