The Invisiblest of the Invisble Cities

Suprisingly, as I read I encountered one city that seemed real, Leonia. The first until now, at least. Calvino seems to be directly mocking today´s consumerism, this need to buy and dispose rapidly.

"On the sidewalks, encased in spotless plastic bags, the remains of yesterday´s Leonia await in the garbage truck. Not only squeezed tubes of toothpaste, blown-out lightbulbs, newspapers, containers,wrappings, but also boilers, encyclopedias, pianos, porcelain dinner services." (pg. 114)

The last objects listed are those which people wouldn´t just through out, but protect and even pass down to their children. Finding this suprising, Calvino included something I wasn´t looking out for. He is using 1. Irony and 2. Mockery.

The Khan himself uses sarcasm with Polo when he doubts the existence the cities. "...So then, yours is truly a voyage through memory!" the Khan said. Now, even I don´t think they exist. Some are impossible, like Beersheba with its other 2 cities above and underneath it, but Adelma made it clear the cities are made from memory.

Marco Polo had ventured into Adelma and saw people who he knew and had died. Why would he see only people was once related to instead of anybody else? Because these cities are off the top of his head! I´m totally team Khan! This has also made me consider the cities represent something, yet I don´t know what it is, probably something related to reading and forgetting the information you once read. I feel pretty lost and I´m near the end of the book, meaning my path was not the right one.

Unraveling the Paths of Calvino

So, there´s a special path you must follow to understand Invisible Cities and I have various theories of the characteristics this path has. The key is, I believe, the conversations between Marco Polo and the Kublai Khan. The following citations seemed relevant enough to evaluate the order:


"There is one [city] of which you never speak."
 Marco Polo bowed his head.
"Venice." the Khan said.
....
"Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice... To distinguish other cities´ qualities, I must speak of a first city that remains implicit. For me it is Venice."
(pg. 86)

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"Kublai Khan had noticed that Marco Polo´s cities resembled one another, as if the passage from one to another involved not a journey but a change of elements." (pg. 43)

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"Now, from each city Marco described to him, the Great Khan´s mind set out on its own, and after dismantling the city piece by piece, he reconstructed it in other ways, substituting components, shifting them, inverting them." (pg. 43)

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"Memory´s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little. " (pg. 87)


So, all the cities resemble each other and there are slight changes between them. I have inferred that the starting city of the path would be Venice, and then a city called Esmeralda. Of all the cities I read about, this one seems the most closely related to Venice because of its canals.

"In Esmeralda, city of water, a network of canals and a network of streets span and intersect each other." pg 88


I had developed this path but then realized it isn´t possible beacuse Marco Polo knew his own Venice, and nowadays, anyone whose been there knows their own Venice because they have had different experiences and have learned a variety of things.

The Body of a Woman Part 2

"Kublai Khan had noticed that Marco Polo´s cities resembled one another, as if the passage from one to another involved not a journey but a change of elements. Now, from each city Marco described to him, the Great Khan´s mind set out on its own, and after dismantling the city piece by piece, he reconstructed it in other ways, substituting components, shifting them, inverting them." (pg. 43)

Women are all, in essence, the same, but elements like personality, skin tone, hair color, or size mark a notable difference. Most of the cities portrayed are like that, and I noticed many that were close to congurent.

Eusapia, on page 109, is a beautiful city built above an identical one. One lies undergound, a hidden place where the dead live. These are almost the same city, and where the dead and alive try to become one another´s refelction. Reminds me of page 111, with the city of Beersheba. There is a tangible city, but there is also one in the heavens and one underneath. If the citizens of Beersheba are honorable, they will become one with the city in the heavens, but if they act otherwise, this will happen with the city underneath. Why so many copies of the same city? Two-faced women?

 All my thoughts about women were interrupted when the next day, we used close reading to understand the first pages of the book. This would change how I viewed the whole text then. The book was an allegory, just like Inferno!

Its Indirect Metaliterature!

 

The Body of a Woman

As I read in my chosen order, I realized 1 thing: every city, even Venice, was named like a woman! Aglaura, Dorothea, Isidora, Armilla, Chloe, etc. Then it hit me. What is these cities were mapping out a women´s body? One may need to draw a city to understand what is happening in the story on a figurative level. One of the cities mentions "two young ladies with white parasols." They could represent 2 eyes, 2 breasts,  or even 2 nostrils. After a few failed attempts, I gave up.

But, women kept appearing much more than men did, excluding the 2 main and only characters in the book. Maybe it was the fact that these stories were memories and that Marco Polo was a male. He would obviously have remembered the women he saw instead of a greasy old guy eating pork.

"In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, examine some old post cards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory." Pg. 30


As I read, I also came to think these women (the cities) might have been who Marco Polo slept with in distant places. The first few cities had special characteristics a woman could have, like Zirma (pg. 19), in which the same scenario repeated, or Maurilia (mentioned above) in which the woman could be missing her old self and tried to assure herself that the changes have suited her.

Women´s personalities vary so much, it is not suprising there´s a city that corresponds to a woman who exists or has existed.

Go Judge a Book by its Cover

The title: Invisible Cities. The author: Italo Calvino. The result: A story that can be read in 8 different ways but only one of them allows you to understand the storyline.

I had began reading before being aware of this, so I chose to follow the page order. After I began getting an idea of the context (which I still really don´t get), I noticed the image in the book´s cover. Seems like an overlap of images, I thought. Followed by the doubt of these pictures having any particular meaning, I used the powers of Google and found the logo of the Venezia Hotel Bauer Grunwald had been included there. Success in my search led me to continue. The article found said the hotel opened in 1880, after a marriage between the Bauer and Grunwald families. Low blow after reading that Kublai Khan lived until 1294.  

The image also had traces of stucco, commonly used in the 1500s to give texture to exteriors. Still a long time after Kublai Kahn´s reign. All this has proven that you can never judge a book by its cover. Even if you have some background from the book, a magic tool like Google (holds all the answers to life) or other sources, it is not wise to do so. 

Dawkins´s Dilemma

In class, we read part of Chapter 12 and attempted to recreate the Prisoner´s Dilemma game. I thought it was very easy, both persons would choose cooperate and would earn .3 on their grade. After sneakily planning it, Barbara surprised us all by backstabbing Pedro and earning .5, Dawkins showing us selfishness at its best (or should I say worst?). But this is also an example of morale. If both persons care for the other they will probably cooperate for the two of them to be benefitted, it´s the right thing to do isn´t it?

Well what´s right for a survival machine may not be right for a person who isn´t abusing of other´s weaknesses and strengths for personal gain. To me, it all depends on the path the replicators have walked down, a path full of feelings and selflessness and a path of selfishness and abuse of others.

A "Selfish" Gene?

"No matter how much knowledge of wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed to your children by genetic means." (Pg 23)

I had thought this was a clear explanation of why the book was titled The Selfish Gene. A gene is learns and learns, studies and studies, but just does it for him/herself. It makes perfect sense; you work your butt off for yourself, not for other huh? You don´t have friends, you have a "pack" in case you have an issue that can be solved on their expense. 

For us its "morale," a useless idea that has sadly managed to successfully pass down through generations. The decision if the following: Worst case scenario, me walking down a street when suddenly, le wild armed guy appears. He orders me and the woman who was walking beside me to give him our things. 

Option 1: Tackle the old lady and run. She is weaker and has lived her life, I still have to live mine! 


Option 2: Use telepathy and communicate with the old lady. She knows Tae-Kwon-Do and so do I. We can use symbiosis and fight the guy off with our Hoo sin Sool.

Dawkins would probably urge me to tackle this lady, yet the morale I have learned from society tells me I must fend this guy off. We humans probably don´t have the selfish gene. I´m sorry Mr. Dawkins but most people probably have issues when deciding between letting their selfish gene rule or being rebels and letting society and it´s good ways lead the way.