Invisible Cities is one of six entries for Italo Calvino (1923-1985) in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The other five are
- The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1969, translated into English 1977, on my TBR);
- If On a Winter’s Night, a Traveller (1979, translated 1981, see my review;
- Our Ancestors (1960, translated into English 1962. This is the ‘heraldic trio’ comprising The Cloven Viscount, (1952, translated 1959) The Baron in the Trees (1957, translated 1959, on my TBR) and The Nonexistent Knight, 1959, translated 1962);
- The Path to the Nest of Spiders (1947, translated 1947 and revised 1998. I have this on order); and
- Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988, essays, translated 1993)
(Links on the titles are to Wikipedia.)
(1001 Books does not include The Complete Cosmicomics (1997), probably because it’s not a novel, it’s a collection of short stories, one of which I reviewed recently.)
The citation for Invisible Cities from 1001 Books says that:
1st Italian edition, 1972, Einaudi
Invisible Cities is constructed as a series of imaginary travel anecdotes told to the Tartar emperor Kublai Khan by the Venetian explorer Marco Polo. Fifty-five prose pieces each describe a different fabulous city and each contains a conceptual or philosophical puzzle or enigma. Zemrude, for example, is a city that changes according to the mood of the beholder. It is divided into upper and lower parts, windowsills and fountains above gutters and wastepaper below. The upper world is known chiefly through the memory of those whose eyes now dwell on the lower. (1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, edited by Peter Boxall, 2006 Edition, Quintet Publishing 2006, p 632.)
But it was the article at Wikipedia that offered me a schematic way to read it…
Invisible Cities is structured in 9 chapters, each prefaced by a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, and followed by a coda where they reflect on the cities just described. Like Alexander the Great who could not maintain control of the lands he had conquered, the Khan is bothered from outset of the story that the size of his empire makes it impossible for him to know it all. The more it expands, the more it inevitably results in places too far from civilisation to be ‘healed’ and corruption is inevitable. So the Khan tends to be a bit testy, and Marco Polo has to walk a tightrope between maintaining his own intellectual authority and respect for the all-powerful ruler of a mighty empire. In Calvino’s deconstruction of the travel literature genre, Marco Polo is not just a merchant-traveller or an entertainer, he is also a politician and philosopher, one who must always be one step ahead of the emperor. The mental atlas of the empire is eventually likened to a chess board and it is a duel that the emperor does not want to lose.
Like chess, a game of patterns, logic and strategy, the story is framed mathematically. The number of sub-sections within each chapter forms a neat pattern, with descriptions of 10 cities in Chapter 1, but only 5 in Chapters 2-8, and 10 in Chapter 9.
Wikipedia offers a chart listing the eleven thematic groups within the overall structure. Across the top are listed the themes, and the chapter numbers are listed down the LHS. Just visible amid my scrawled notes, are the typed names of the cities that correspond to the themes. (All the cities have women’s names). Diomara in listed first under Cities & Memory, with Isidora beneath it; Dorothea is first in the column for Cities & Desire; Zaira is 3rd in the column for Memory; with Anastasia under Desire, and Tamara is the first in the column for Cities & Signs. And so it goes on…
Cities & Memory (5, in chapters 1 & 2)- Cities & Desire (5, in chapters 1, 2 & 3)
- Cities & Signs (5, in chapters 1, 2, 3 & 4)
- Thin Cities (5, in chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5)
- Trading Cities (5, in chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6)
- Cities & Eyes (5, in chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7)
- Cities & Names (5, in chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8)
- Cities & the Dead (5, in chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9)
- Cities & the Sky (5, in chapters 6, 7, 8 & 9)
- Continuous Cities (5, in chapters 7, 8 & 9)
- Hidden Cities (5, in chapters 8 & 9)
As you can see, there’s a neat pattern to the chapters in which the cities appear too: 5 for each theme, in a sequence of 2 / 3 / 4 / 5-5-5-5-5 / 4 / 3 / 2. The cities that appear in 5 chapters are in sequences 1,2,3,4,5; 2,3,4,5,6; 3,4,5,6,7; 4,5,6,7,8; and 5,6,7,8,9.
At Wikipedia in the same section on the structure there is also a much more mathematical analysis which looks at the geometric patterns which are apparently characteristic of the Oulipo literary group to which Calvino belonged.
At first I began by merely scribbling down the physical features of the city but soon I began to notice other aspects too. For example, many of the cities have doubles:
The Ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveller,, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms’ interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes. (p.45.)
No city is more inclined than Eusapia to enjoy life and flee care. And to make the leap from life to death less abrupt, the inhabitants have constructed an identical copy of their city, underground. All corpses, dried in such a way that the skeleton remains sheathed in yellow skin, are carried down there, to continue their former activities. And, of these activities, it is their carefree moments that take first place. (p.98.)
The belief is handed down in Beersheba: that, suspended in the heavens, there exists another Beersheba, where the city’s more elevated virtues and sentiments are poised… (p.100.)
Other doubles are
- Sophronia: two half-cities consisting of a sort of fun fair with a roller-coaster, Ferris wheel, and trapezes, while the other half consists of the underbelly of any city — factories, slaughterhouses and so on.
- As noted above in the excerpt from 1001 Books, Zemrude varies according to the mood of the beholder. You’ll see the upper world if you are whistling, and you’ll see the sordid gutters and waste of the lower if you hang your head.
- Eudoxia is doubled by a carpet that preserves its true form, laid out in symmetrical circles whose patterns are repeated along straight and circular lines, interwoven with brilliantly coloured spires, in a repetition that can be followed throughout the whole woof [weft].
Laudomia is a triple city, and Eutropia consists of many cities of equal size scattered over a plateau but only one is inhabited at time.
The other recurring feature is that of impending doom. Not just cycles of expansion and decay, but the finality of annihilation.
Leonia is facing destruction from a landslide of its own waste, the refuse created by their obsession with constant renewal of unused consumer goods; Thekla is so panicked by the prospect of destruction that the city is crowded with the detritus of permanent construction and they can never stop working on it; Octavia is a spider-web city, suspended over a precipice by ropes and chains and catwalks. There is an artist on Twitter, who has shared his rendition of this city of Octavia: Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will only last so long.
Clearly, this is a book for re-reading, and I look forward to hearing from anyone who’s read it too.
I was prompted to read Invisible Cities because it’s the book of the month at the #CalvinoBookClub. The club is hosted by Calvino enthusiast Philip Marsh, an alumni of the University of East Anglia, who also hosts a podcast called A Plunge into Calvino (where you can hear him chatting with Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings!)
Author: Italo Calvino
Title: Invisible Cities (Le città invisibili)
Publisher: Vintage (Random House) 1997, first published in 1972, first English translation 1974)
Cover design by Michael Sala
ISBN: 9780099429838, pbk., 148 pages
Source: Personal library, purchased from Readings $12.95
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
Way too taxing for me I’m sorry. Glad that you gained so much from reading it though
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By: BookerTalk on July 26, 2023
at 4:21 am
*chuckle* Well, I am going to have a little rest now, and read something not quite so demanding!
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 9:59 am
It’s such a fascinating book, isn’t it Lisa? I re-read it recently for the first time in decades (my review is coming on Friday) and I found so much in it. Yet I think I barely scratched the surface, as I found when I looked at the Wikipedia page after I’d finished the book. You’re right – I think it’s a book which deserves endless re-reads!
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By: kaggsysbookishramblings on July 26, 2023
at 4:22 am
Ah, I look forward to seeing that…
I wanted to write more about the progression of that debate between KK and MP — because that is the most ‘novelish’ aspect of the book and philosophical tussles over power fascinate me. But it would make the review too long, so I wrote about what excited me most.
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 10:05 am
What a wonderful post! Thank you as always for your careful reading and insights, and for explaining your sources (Wikipedia etc). It is so very refreshing to enjoy your approach to sharing the fruits of your vast (amazing) reading and reflection. I can’t help comparing this kind of reviewing to some of the notes I find in eg newspapers. I have in mind here the recent scandal in Australian reviewing as revealed last week in online Meanjin: https://meanjin.com.au/blog/plagiarism-cobbling-or-accidental-inclusion/
You have sent me back to re-reading some Calvino, with probably even greater pleasure than before. Thank you again.
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By: carmelbird on July 26, 2023
at 5:10 am
Thank you, Carmel!
I must say, this was a book where I departed from my usual practice, which is to read the book (and the press release if there is one), write the review and then (sometimes, usually if I have doubts) see what others think. For Calvino or other challenging books from the canon, I need some guidance to get the best of the book, and read those sources first.
That story about Fitzgerald… I had noticed it in Overington’s column, but was not very surprised. That entire page of ‘notable books’ features ‘reviews’ that look suspiciously like the press releases I get (usually about books I’ve chosen not to read.) Really, the Oz Review is no help to those of us who are looking for good books to read.
It seems to me, however, that those ultimately responsible are too quick to disavow their failure to notice any plagiarism. What is an editor or publisher for, if not for that?
(BTW I’ve read the first chapter of Love Letter to Lola, and the extinction upset me so much I had to send the book back to the library without reading any more of it. Very powerful stuff, Carmel!!)
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 9:55 am
I can understand that editors don’t have time to check every review for plagiarism. It is fairly standard and traditional that editors trust their writers. (Think of how John Hughes duped Terri-Ann White with The Dogs.) At least The Australian has banned future reviews by Fitzgerald. But there probably needs to be a wider examination of book-reviewing in Australia. It is, as you suggest, quite patchy. I understand that Meanjin is in the process of doing this.
(I am honoured that the Lola story caused you to bin the book – although I wish you had persevered a little and given yourself the opportunity to read at least the final notes on the origins of the stories, and perhaps some of the other stories which can be quite entertaining, particularly ‘Recording Angel’ which concerns the afterlife as run by angels. Of course I understand also that your time is precious, and I admire the time and wonderful effort that you devote to the books you post.)
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By: carmelbird on July 26, 2023
at 10:12 am
It was nothing to do with time.
The state of the planet bothers me, and I often have very gloomy thoughts about what it will be like in my old age and for The Offspring and others that I love.
Sometimes, I just can’t deal with reading about the avoidable tragedy of it.
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 10:32 am
Again I completely understand. Of course that was why I wrote the story, and several of the others.
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By: carmelbird on July 26, 2023
at 12:27 pm
What an outstanding review Lisa. I have a couple of his novels and what a distinctive amazing writer but oh so demanding. I will take the plunge and pick them off the bookshelf. I understand how difficult it is to read serious literature in world that looks so bleak. The challenge just to stay engaged is daunting but how awful if we did not have these humans who write and us who read.
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By: Fay K on July 26, 2023
at 10:54 am
I think that what you will enjoy in Invisible Cities is the way Marco Polo keeps bringing attention to the underclass. He forces KK to see them.
And the portents of doom seem so prescient now.
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 11:03 am
See, this is interesting, because I really wanted to like Invisible Cities more. Instead I found it repetitive and frustrating! Understanding the very schematic nature of the book helps me see what Calvino was getting at, so thank you. It’s still not going to be one of my favourites of his, though, partly for the same reason: schematic novels, or ones that focus on philosophy to the detriment of other elements of fiction, tend to leave me cold.
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By: Elle on July 26, 2023
at 5:26 pm
I wonder, I hadn’t thought of this before, but I used a schemata to help me find some of the treasure in James Joyce’s Ulysses, so maybe that’s why I was predisposed to play with it.
And it was play, I decided before I started that (as with Ulysses) I wasn’t going to get hung up on finding all the clever things that scholars know about, I was just going to read it and see what patterns I could find.
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 6:52 pm
This is a great idea, to think of it as play. Although it makes me wonder (rather sadly) if I can’t play anymore—if my options for engaging with literature are “totally for fun” or “totally for serious”. Or maybe this just legitimately wasn’t my cup of tea and that’s ok too!
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By: Elle on July 26, 2023
at 11:53 pm
It’s definitely not a book for everyone. It’s like cryptic crosswords, which are not about solving the puzzle, it’s about admiring the cleverness of the clues (and of course our own cleverness in figuring them out.)
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By: Lisa Hill on July 27, 2023
at 8:01 am
Reblogged this on penwithlit and commented:
Wonderful work of the imagination. Brilliant!
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By: penwithlit on July 26, 2023
at 8:35 pm
Yes, brilliant. I want to find out more about Oulipo now.
(I bought the Penguin Book of Oulipo, to kickstart my journey.)
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By: Lisa Hill on July 26, 2023
at 9:05 pm
I hope I remember to come back to the post when I get around to this book, which I should, as I continue with the 1001 list!
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By: lauratfrey on July 27, 2023
at 5:30 am
Hi Laura, I don’t think I’m ever going to get there with 1001. I made a really good start because I had read so many classics, but I seem to have been stalled near 400 for ages.
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By: Lisa Hill on July 27, 2023
at 7:53 am
400 is amazing!! I’ve plateaued around 150
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By: lauratfrey on July 27, 2023
at 9:11 am
#JustQuietly I’m secretly just aiming for 500 before I go to The Great Library in the Sky…
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By: Lisa Hill on July 27, 2023
at 9:14 am
Realistic! My husband gave me a pep talk about how I need to buckle down and read more from the list, lol. I did the math on how many I may need to read per year and got discouraged.
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By: lauratfrey on July 27, 2023
at 12:25 pm
Look, it all depends how seriously you want to take it, I’ve only ever used it as a guide to introduce me to writers I don’t know.
But it’s easy to get discouraged if you are tackling it as a serious challenge or as some kind of guide to be ‘better-read’ than you are. At Goodreads, I set up 3 ‘shelves’: the ones I’d read (currently 387), the ones I had on my TBR (118), and the leftovers which I tagged as a wishlist (currently 499) and made that one an ‘exclusive’ shelf so it doesn’t get included in my TBR. (Yes, I know the numbers don’t add up, that’s because some of my 1001-read shelf are from later editions, but my wishlist is only from the 2006 edition). This ‘shelving’ means I can see progress, the TBR going down, and what I’ve read going up, and the wishlist will eventually take care of itself. (Or I’ll die, ha ha.)
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By: Lisa Hill on July 27, 2023
at 12:56 pm
Brilliant. Thanks, Lisa. I have read If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller which i found absolutely wonderful and his non-fiction book Why Read the Classics? He is a great author and I will look out for this.
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By: Marianne Maurer on July 28, 2023
at 9:43 pm
Hello Marianne, I’m sorry I missed your comment and didn’t respond. It’s always nice to meet another reader who likes Calvino:)
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By: Lisa Hill on August 13, 2023
at 9:17 am
That’s alright, it happens. I think those who have read him will also like him. He’s just not that well known.
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By: Marianne Maurer on August 14, 2023
at 7:02 pm
I hadn’t checked this wikipedia page. Fabulous! I really need to reread it, in Italian this time.
I just read Why Read the Classics, and The Cloven Discount, and am currently in The Baron in the Trees, all in Italian.
I also want to reread my favorite: If On a Winter’s Night, a Traveler
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By: WordsAndPeace on August 13, 2023
at 3:30 am
Sounds good. I’ve just had notification that my order of The Path to the Spider’s Nest has been delivered to my PO box, so I can pick it up on Monday:)
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By: Lisa Hill on August 13, 2023
at 8:52 am
Lucky you, enjoy!
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By: WordsAndPeace on August 13, 2023
at 9:09 am