Θα μπορούσα να διαβάζω 55 μέρες τις Αόρατες Πόλεις και κάθε μέρα να γράφω για μια από αυτές. Ο Μεγάλος Χαν- αυτοκράτορας της Κίνας- επειδή δεν δύναται να επισκεφθεί τις πόλεις της αυτοκρατορίας του ζητά από το Μάρκο Πόλο να πραγματοποιήσει αυτές τις επισκέψεις και να του αφηγηθεί έπειτα όσα είδε. Ο Χαν όμως αγνοεί κάτι σημαντικό...αν οι περιγραφές του Μάρκο Πόλο θα αντιστοιχούν στην πραγματικότητα. Το αφήγημα αυτό το Καλβίνο δίνει την ευκαιρία σε όλους εμάς τους αναγνώστες να κατανοήσουμε τον χώρο μας και να αντιληφθούμε σε βάθος κάθε στοιχείο του. Πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο που ξεχωρίζει τόσο στην αφήγηση των ιστοριών όσο και στην δομή του. Θα μπορούσα να γράφω σελίδες για την μορφή, την δομή και το περιεχόμενό του και ίσως κάποια μέρα το κάνω...για την ώρα θα σας προτρέψω να το διαβάσετε και να το απολαύσετε όσο και εγώ. Η καταληκτική παράγραφος είναι εκπληκτική.

من و شيراز
خوب يادم است كه وقتى چهارده پانزده ساله بودم، در خيالاتم شيراز را شهرى تصور مى كردم با ساختمان هاى قديمى، با ايوان هاى كاشيكارى شده، و مخصوصاً با درخت هايى در هر خيابان كه در بهار گلبرگ هايشان با هر باد مى ريزد ميان خيابان و فرش راه عابران مى شود (بعدها اين صحنه را در باغ هاى بادام قزوين تجربه كردم). تصورى كه فكر مى كنم غربى ها تا پنجاه سال پيش از شرق داشتند.
و خوب يادم است كه وقتى در همان سال ها به شيراز سفر كردم، چقدر سرخورده شدم از خيابان هاى معمولى، با ساختمان هاى معمولى، با درخت هاى معمولى. اين جا چراغ راهنماست كه هزارتايش را در هر شهرى ديده ام، اين جا ديوارها را پر كرده اند از پوسترهاى انتخاباتى همان طور كه در شهر خودمان هم مى كنند، اين جا شهردارى ميدان را حصار فلزى كشيده و كارهاى ساختمانى مى كند، با ماسه و سيمان و ماشين هاى ساختمان، انگار نه انگار كه اين خيابان و اين ميدان و اين شهر هفتصد سال قبل در كنار شاه شجاع و سعد بن ابوبكر زنگى و ساقى سيمين بر، موضوع غزل هاى حافظ و سعدى بوده.
آن زمان با خودم فكر كردم: ببين چطور مدرن سازى دست و پا شكسته شرقى، مانند آن زاغ و كبك معروف، هر چه شرقى بوده را از دست داده و در مقابل حتى شبيه به غرب هم نشده. و نوستالژى سال هاى دوردست به جانم افتاد، و تا مدت ها رهايم نكرد. فكر مى كردم مشكل از مدرن سازى است، وگرنه شيراز ماقبل مدرن سازى حتماً شهرى از جنس رؤيا و اثير بوده. و از يك تصور اشتباه به يك تصور اشتباه ديگر افتادم.
لازم بود مدت ها بگذرد و راجع به شكل و شمايل سال هاى دوردست ايران كمى بخوانم تا متوجه شوم يك شهر همان احساسى نيست كه از شنيدن نامش به ما دست مى دهد. يك شهر آن ايده اى نيست كه با حذف آجرها و آسفالت ها و كيسه هاى سيمان شهردارى و چراغ هاى راهنما، باقى مى ماند. اين ايده، اين احساس، جايش در ذهن ماست، به شهر معنى مى دهد، اما شهر اين معنى نيست. اشتباه است اگر فكر كنيم زمانى در قديم بوده كه شهر فقط و فقط از جنس ايده و رؤيا بوده، بدون هيچ پوستر انتخاباتى اى، يا چراغ راهنمايى، يا ماشين هاى ساختمانى اى. شهر يك كل نيست، شهر هيچ چيز نيست، تنها چيزى كه وجود دارد خانه ها و خيابان ها و آدم ها هستند.



كمى هم راجع به كتاب
كتاب بى نظير است. مثل يك رؤياى مكتوب است. ماركوپولو در قصر قوبلاى خان در چين، ماجراى شهرهاى غريبى كه ديده است را بازگو مى كند. كتاب مجموعه ايست از اين گزارش هاى كوتاه راجع به شهرهاى مختلف. هر شهر يك ايده جادويى يا فلسفى-مانند دارد، گاهى راجع به معمارى شهر، گاهى راجع به رسوم شهر، و... ايده هايى كه هم آدم را به فكر مى برد، و هم به ذوق مى آورد.

نقاشى بيشتر شهرهاى كتاب روى اينترنت هست. سر هر شهر فورى مى رفتم سرچ مى كردم و نقاشى ها را تماشا مى كردم و اين لذت كتاب را مضاعف مى كرد. این وسط یک نقاش خوب هم کشف کردم، به اسم ژرار ترینیاک*، که دو تا از نقاشی هایش را بالا گذاشتم.

* Gerard Trignac

مدن إيتالو كالفينو غير مرئية في الواقع, لقطات وملامح لمدن خيالية يحكي عنها الرحالة ماركو بولو
نصوص صغيرة تشبه اللوحات السريالية, خيال وغرائب تهت فيهم وأنا أحاول البحث عن المعنى وراء الكلمات
بعض المدن تركت أثر جميل ورغبة في العودة لها مرة أخرى

This a litany of cities (55) obviously fictitious, exquisitely described by Marco Polo to the great Mongol emperor Kublai Khan... he is understandably dubious. Imagination flows gently through the words of Marco Polo at the grand royal palace in Beijing, towns nobody seen let alone accept. The renowned traveler enjoys visiting new places some very beautifully chronicled by him these settlements but with a touch of creativity which the mind cannot fathomed, yet amaze, city after city, superb even those floating in the air unreachable to all, others underground the citizens in them oblivious to the rest of the world, those looking up feel jealous the mystery unexplained, walls impregnable, roads which take you away from the towns but never to them, sea ports, inland isolated metropolises alone in the vast deserts, they glitter in the sunshine and fade at night. Strangely
though the great khan notices no mention of Venice...You would think the continuous page after page of rather unbelievable cities would get monotonous but this is incorrect, as such allure is never boring. The architecture so fantastic it could not exist on the Earth only in the bottomless mind. People like to hope in something they know is impossible their run- of- the - mill lives are unexciting, needing to be charmed, stimulated, dream about what's over the other side of the hill. This will always be true the stories that take them from the humdrum to the heights are perpetual in fashion, humans strive to arrive in a land of the riddle and try solving the enigma, may this be forever. The author of the book Italo Calvino Cuban born with Italian parents , an unique magnificent writer of the visual who lived in Italy. Both a journalist, short story writer and novelist he engaged in, becoming a master of fantasy as shown here and rich, famous, few could capture its essence better. For the person who wants to escape reality and spend a little time in the what could be, imagination is another way to live at least for a short while...Isn't that enough?

Hidden Cities * 6

You once asked me to describe Venice, and I told you that, every time I described a city, I was saying something about Venice. That was only partly true. In a way, I told you everything I knew about Venice, and nothing.

The truth is that when we first met, I barely knew Venice, its buildings, its canals, its gardens, its squares, its people. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. Let me explain why.

Do you know how old I was when I first left Venice with my father and uncle? Six! I returned nine years later, and departed again for China within two years. In all, I had just eight years to picture my city. The truth is, I know your city and this garden better than I know my home, if that is what it is.

It’s true, I was saying something about Venice. I was defining what it was not. If I could describe cities that were exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions, then I hoped that what would remain would be the rule, the essence, and perhaps that essence would be Venice. If I could describe everything that was impossible, improbable, even too probable, then what would be left would be real, and what was real would be Venice, at least for me.

This was my desire. I had no memory to speak of. There was nothing to be nostalgic about. I did not have words. I didn’t have things. I had only images of things. Admittedly, they were childish images in my mind. Besides, they were not many. They were mainly images of our family home: our garden, our kitchen, my bedroom. Little more. I was afraid that, if I put these images into words, I would lose them. I reserved words for everything else. I kept them for things that needed signs. My images of Venice didn’t need signs. They were emblems in their own right.

I hoped these images of when I was six or 17 would form a kernel around which my dreams of Venice would grow. As I experienced other cities, as I dreamed of invisible cities, what I learned would not supplant these images. It would grow around them and protect and preserve them. My images would be both contained and concealed. They would be emblems within emblems.

In this way, I hoped that my images would not languish, that they would not disintegrate, that they would not disappear. I hoped that I would not forget them.

Most of all, though, I was trying to preserve objects, things. Not words, phrases, metaphors. In the absence of words, I couldn’t utilise language, and if I couldn’t utilise language, I couldn’t communicate with you. For you to know Venice, you would have to see it for yourself, and I knew there was little prospect of your leaving your Court.

There was a time when I thought you might wish to visit Venice. If I made it seem alluring, you might desire it. If I made it seem powerful, you might fear it, so much so that you would have to wrestle its power from it. I was relieved when you said, “I have neither desires nor fears.”

I preserved Venice from and for you without words. I hoped not to deceive you in doing so. There is no language without deceit. Conversely, there is no deceit without language.

Words work by way of distinctions. Words distinguish things from each other. I was trying to describe many cities for your edification. To distinguish these cities’ qualities, it’s true, I had to speak of a first city that would remain implicit. I told you that city was Venice. It had to remain implicit, because I lacked the knowledge or the will or the ability to make it explicit. Instead, I invented cities like Esmeralda and Phyllis that contained canals and boats and barges, so that you could imagine your own Venice.

The irony is that you think of Venice more than I do. As fond of it as I am, I try to think of it as little as possible. If I dwelled on it, I’d worry that it would turn into words, and if it turned into words, then, as I’ve said, it might vanish.

I wish that Venice didn’t even have a name. It would be so much easier to think of it as pure form, like a philosopher, as absolute truth, beauty, perfection, as the essence of a city, as not just the city of my youth, but the essence of every city.

Venice doesn’t need words. I don’t need words for Venice. If I needed anything, I would need only images. And images of Venice await my return.




Giardino Giusti

مشكلة أن يكون العالم ظاهرا أو خفيا
أن يكون ظاهرا في الخفاء
في المناطق الواقعة خارج الكلام
الزحام الذي نخفيه أو نتخفى فيه
يواجهني إيتالو كالفينو بسرد يشق حاجز الصمت
بصور تنطبع فيها أفكار لم نقلها
بتصورات يدركها وعينا لم تتحول أبدا لصور قولية نلعب بها مع الآخرين
لأننا لا نتحمل تلك التساؤلات الغامضة الساكنة فيها
ينطلق خيالك صديقي القارئ في بحر كالفينو
ترسو معه لحظة في كل محطة
سيقوم الراوي بدور مرشد سياحي خبير لكنه مرهق
ولديه يقين أنك لن تجد الراحة في تلك النقلات السريعة
سيتخذ من قصر صيني عريق مرتكزا
لإمبراطور امتدت سلطته لعوالم متفرعة
بات يحلم بجديد لم يره في واقعه الذي لا يبلغ البصر منتهاه
يتطلع بشغف لما في الأذهان التي لا يستطيع أن يفتحها
أو لكلمات لا مثيل لها في أبجديته
يبحث عن وحدة التعدد
يتمنى لو اجتمع العالم في حضنه
ليشعر بهؤلاء الذين يعرفونه ولا يعرفهم
الراوي يحل في شخصية مغامر قديم
ارتحل من إيطاليا للشرق
وفي ثنائية الحاكم والحاكي
أو السلطان والبحار
يجتمع ماركو بولو وقوبلاي خان
ويروي البحار
ويسأل السلطان
لعبة السيجا تمتد في الأسحار
والرقعة أرض منزلقة من بحار
كل حالة شعورية ستجد لها مقابلا عمرانيا متخيلا
كل حلم غريب سينمو في فراغ معلق بين كائنات منطلقة من عتمة الوعي
ويقظة ذهنية تبحث عن جملة خبرية فلا تجد إلا المجاز
ما لا نراه في الواقع هنا
ما نراه في أنفسنا هنا
ما يتوارى في جيوب الخطابات هنا
سرد تجريدي موجز لمجلدات التاريخ
وموسوعات الحضارة
هذا الخيال مرعب يا صديقي
ضوء يغمر الصمت الذي يتدثر به عري أيامنا
اختيار أن تعتاد الجحيم باستسلام طقسي وديع
أو تنقب عن ذهب لا تعلن البورصات عن سعره
لأنها تعلم أن تلك الأشياء ليست للبيع
طريقة الكتابة تذكرك بالمؤرخين العرب
الذين كتبوا عن مدن طواها الزمان
فغرقت في دوامات بعيدة
اندرست وتركت أحلاما تعوم في ذاكرة غائمة
بخاصة التاريخ المصري الذي تحدث عنه المسعودي والمقريزي
وبعض بلدان ياقوت الحموي التي رتبها على حروف الأبجدية في معجمه
كما فعل نجيب محفوظ في شخصيات المرايا وحديث الصباح والمساء
كالفينو يبحث عن صيغة وجود حضاري عبر الأزمنة
يلتقي فيها الشرق والغرب
وتنطلق الرموز من أسر المرجعيات المحددة
لعلنا نرى أنفسنا في فضاء الفكر
الذي يقطعه السرد ذهابا دون وصول
ولا يعود به إلى محطة الانطلاق التي غادرها صوت الراوي
وهو يمضي مصوبا ضوء كشافه لتبديد نقطة معتمة تجيد المراوغة

n  L’essenziale è invisibilen
Nell’estate del ’67 Calvino si trasferisce con la famiglia a Parigi, dove resterà fino al 1980. In quegli anni frequenterà, tra gli altri, Perec e Queneau, e aderirà al gruppo n  OuLiPon (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), che inventa la littérature potentielle, ovvero la “ricerca di nuove strutture e schemi che possano essere usati dagli scrittori nella maniera che preferiscono".
In questa cornice si inquadra il “periodo combinatorio” di Calvino, che produrrà Il castello dei destini incrociati, nel 1969, e poi Le città invisibili, nel 1972.
La struttura del libro si articola su nove capitoli, e ogni capitolo inizia e si conclude con un dialogo tra Marco Polo e Kublai Khan, imperatore tartaro. In ogni capitolo Marco Polo descriverà all’imperatore alcune città, frutto della sua fantasia. In tutto saranno 55 città immaginarie dal nome di donna, raggruppate in capitoli tematici: la memoria, i segni, gli occhi, i morti, le città nascoste e così via.
Calvino, nelle Lezioni americane, scrive: «Un simbolo più complesso, che mi ha dato le maggiori possibilità di esprimere la tensione tra razionalità geometrica e groviglio delle esistenze umane è quello della città. Il mio libro in cui credo d'aver detto più cose resta Le città invisibili, perché ho potuto concentrare su un unico simbolo tutte le mie riflessioni, le mie esperienze, le mie congetture; e perché ho costruito una struttura sfaccettata in cui ogni breve testo sta vicino agli altri in una successione che non implica una consequenzialità o una gerarchia ma una rete entro la quale si possono tracciare molteplici percorsi e ricavare conclusioni plurime e ramificate.»
Nel ’79, Calvino concluderà poi questa ideale trilogia con Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore.
«Marco Polo descrive un ponte, pietra per pietra.
Ma qual’è la pietra che sostiene il ponte? - chiede Kublai Kan.
- Il ponte non è sostenuto da questa o quella pietra, - risponde Marco, - ma dalla linea dell’arco che esse formano.
Kublai Kan rimane silenzioso, riflettendo. Poi soggiunge: - Perché mi parli di pietre? È solo dell’arco che m’importa.
Polo risponde: - Senza pietre non c’è arco.»
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non dimenticate di portare con voi una copia del libro. Sarà un soggiorno … da sogno!

Debo decir que fue un placer absoluto la lectura de este libro en el que uno va descubriendo estas ciudades que a pura imaginación Ítalo Calvino creó y que están descriptas con una prosa milimétrica y terriblemente cautivadora.

En la historia, el emperador Kublai Kan le pide a Marco Polo que le describa las distintas ciudades del imperio que este ha ido conociendo a lo largo de todos sus viajes, y así es como le irá describiendo un total de 55 ciudades de lo mas extravagantes, cada una de ellas con distintas características que las hacen únicas, ya sea por su extraña geometría, por el recuerdo que deja en quienes la conocen, por su relación con los astros o por su relación con la muerte, por nombrar solo algunos ejemplos, cada una de estas ciudades tienen algo especial que atrae y que luego te deja reflexionando.
Y no menos ricos son los diálogos que mantienen Kublai Kan y Marco Polo hablando sobre las ciudades.

Me parece una joya de apenas 172 paginas que merece una lectura tranquila para disfrutar del magnífico tono que se mantiene en toda la obra gracias a la exquisita prosa del autor. Fue mi primer Calvino y ahora sin duda van a venir más.
Muy recomendable.

n  “El infierno de los vivos no es algo por venir; hay uno, el que ya existe aquí, el infierno que habitamos todos los días, que formamos estando juntos. Hay dos maneras de no sufrirlo. La primera es fácil para muchos: aceptar el infierno y volverse parte de él hasta el punto de dejar de verlo. La segunda es arriesgada y exige atención y aprendizaje continuos: buscar y saber reconocer quién y qué, en medio del infierno, no es infierno, y hacer que dure, y dejarle espacio.”n

Invisible Cities is quite a strange book. It chronicles the dialogue between Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, and Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler, wherein the latter describes the cities of the empire from his travels to the former. Over 9 chapters, Marco describes 55 cities divided into 11 thematic categories. The 55 cities, all bear female names. But the more cities Marco describes to Kublai Khan, the more he sees a certain resemblance of a pattern until he realizes that Marco Polo has all through described only one city, which is Venice.

Outwardly, the book is a beautiful nonsense. All you read is Marco Polo's nonsensical description of the cities to which he had traveled. But if you give more meaning to his words and look beyond their surface, the nonsense clears itself into a thought-provoking philosophy. Marco Polo's descriptions of the cities of his travels may sound abstract and nonsensical until you realize that it must be so, for one can only describe a thing according to his subjective perspective. Marco's descriptions of the cities of his travels are a hybrid of his memories, desires, and what he perceived through his naked eye. But what does he see through his naked eye? Does he see the cities of Kublai Khan's vast empire? Or do the cities elude his vision and become invisible?

Kublai Khan's desire to comprehend the present true state of the cities of his great empire is frustrated by Marco's descriptions. When Kublai demands Marco to describe his cities, with the help of a chessboard, only the great Khan comes to realize that what he seeks to comprehend, can never be comprehended. "Perhaps, instead of racking one’s brain to suggest with the ivory pieces’ scant help visions which were anyway destined to oblivion, it would suffice to play a game according to the rules, and to consider each successive state of the board as one of the countless forms that the system of forms assembles and destroys. Knowledge of the empire was hidden in the pattern drawn by the angular shifts of the knight, by the diagonal, passages opened by the bishop’s incursions, by the lumbering, cautious tread of the king and the humble pawn, by the inexorable ups and downs of every game. What were the true stakes? At checkmate, beneath the foot of the king, knocked aside by the winner’s hand, a black or a white square remains. By disembodying his conquests to reduce them to the essential, Kublai had arrived at the extreme operation: the definitive conquest, of which the empire’s multiform treasures were only illusory envelopes. It was reduced to a square of planed wood: nothingness. . . ."

The book is a beautiful work of philosophy. I was in awe once the comprehension began to dawn upon me. There was so much material to reflect on. I was thoroughly captivated by his beautiful writing and profound philosophy. My kindle is full of highlighted passages which is evidence in itself of how much I was enchanted by his words. I don't like to crowd my review with quotations, but I feel some of it is called for, in justice for this work. Therefore, I'll be sharing the following two quotations as a winding up to the review.

"Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone. “But which is the stone that supports the bridge?” Kublai Khan asks. “The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,” Marco answers, “but by the line of the arch that they form.” Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: “Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.” Polo answers: “Without stones, there is no arch.”

"Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms. “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.”

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

Italo Calvino is a veritable drug. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, and don't trust them if they do.

Ever since the rapturous reading experience that is If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, I have been hooked on the man's words. As it is with most blossoming relationships, I'm a little wary of coming on too strong or getting too close too quickly and chipping away at the charming veneer of novelty in the throes of my overeager enthusiasm before we've gotten comfortable with each other, but this is the third book of his I've read in a year (exactly a year, actually) and I am just as giddily smitten with Invisible Cities as I was with my aforementioned introduction to Calvino's works and also Cosmicomics.

Invisible Cities clocks in at a seemingly stingy 165 pages, with many pages only half-filled and a number of them left conspicuously blank. But since this is a Calvino novel, his beautiful, beautiful words are only a fraction of the payoff: The ideas, the images, the quiet messages, the prophetic warnings disguised as storytelling, the dreamlike quality licking at the edges of every sentence and even the apparent silences of seemingly unused spaces carry more weight than they would if they were crafted by any other writer's hand. And there is not a sentence that does no warrant savoring with a second or third read in this entire book.

This novel is what happens when two historical figures -- in this case, an elderly but spirited Kublai Khan and the younger traveler Marco Polo -- whose lone commonality is being alive at the same time try to communicate without sharing a language. Polo conveys the cities (or is it just one city's many faces?) he has seen to the emperor through gestures, objects and other nonverbal cues. Like Cosmicomics, it is a map comprising the essences of things; like If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, the reader becomes part of the narrative as he is welcome to draw his own conclusions just as much as Khan is.

I think I've made it pretty clear in previous reviews that I love duality and the play between opposing forces in my reading materials of choice, probably to the point that I find them in places they don't really live. Invisible Cities has 'em by the fistfuls, though. The palpably dynamic tension between the visible and in-, happiness and misery, the imagined and the real, the living and the dead, the storyteller and his audience, the roaring inferno and the heavenly plains, the finite work of creation and infinite motion of ruin, the image and its mirrored reflection was a delight unto itself, but the additional step of blurring the lines between each extreme with every achingly gorgeous stop on the raconteur's journey through recollection and the listener's odyssey of imagination was exactly the kind of extra mile I expect Calvino to traverse with gusto.

There is an inversion of expectations that gives each push-and-pull pairing of opposites some of the hazy magic that is so particular to Calvino's works. It's not entirely surprising to read about cities where the living envy the cities of their dead to the point of emulation and confusion as to which populous is really alive, or whose people are more at peace with the certainty of obliteration than their earthbound counterparts because their metropolis is built upon a spider-web network of ropes and they are all too aware that their precarious balance could fail at any moment (is there anyone more alive than those who are reminded of death on a daily basis?). But there is a pleasant surprise when the design of a carpet and the layout of a city are echoes of each other; oracles who are consulted about the mystical connection between two unlikely entities only offer the ambiguous insight that "[o]ne of the two objects…. has the form the gods gave the starry sky and the orbits in which the worlds revolve; the other is an approximate reflection, like every human creation."

While there are common threads and themes woven throughout Polo's narratives, no two cities (or no two faces of the city) are examined in the same way. The cities' signs, desires, dead, names, skies and other shared traits may be explored but never to the same effect. And sometimes seemingly unrelated characteristics make similar points: A city would have no history without its dead, just as its living have no motivation for progress without acknowledging the mistakes upon which a history was built, just as the dead have a peace that the living won't know without forging ahead in life.

There is a sense of concentricity that unites each urban observation, which, along with the interspersed exchanges between emperor and explorer, help move the novel toward its oft-hinted-at augury of urgency that reaches its climax as the stories reach their conclusion, as relevant as it was centuries ago when Marco Polo and Kublai Khan were supposedly having their animated discourse in a garden, as when Invisible Cities was published four decades ago, as when I finished it this morning:

The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, and make them endure, give them space.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

When I first found this book at the store I thought “Now, why in the world would I want to read a book describing nonexistent cities?”. Still, I bought the book (mainly due to the positive reviews I found here), having decided to read it. I followed other readers advices and tried to restrict myself to a chapter a day. It’s not a long book, maybe even a short one at that, and you can read it in quick fashion. But I must say, how right those others readers were.

At the beginning of the book I didn’t feel engaged, but as I kept on reading something changed and I became as intrigued by Marco Polo’s descriptions as the Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan. I can’t exactly explain why. The descriptions just felt vivid and at times I felt that I was reading them just for what they were, while at other times I could see various meanings when different cities were being described. Some meanings of which could be even be applied to real life.

Reading this book often felt like having a dream while being awaken. In that sense, Calvino might have mirrored the readers in his characters, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. I still can’t explain what it is about Calvino’s writing that I particularly enjoyed, but I’m willing to read more.

Enchanting and majestically spellbinding, Calvino weaves us with descriptive beauty through the picturesque travels of Marco Polo who talks of wondrous cities to the imperial Kublai Khan. Less of a story and more an ordering and reordering of the emotional and philosophical reverberations of our civilized world, with an elegant poetic prose per chapter which resulted in 165 pages of pure imaginative bliss.