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A review by gabriel_sakoda
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
adventurous
informative
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Invisible Cities relishes in oddly specific yet entirely ambiguous musings on the many forms a city takes. The fictionalized accounts of Marco Polo paint a picture of his observations as one characterized by being an eternal outsider. Polo's character lingers on the habits of rats, farmers, drainage; lines in motion. Polo's travels make him a cosmopolitan, but he loses sense of what makes a city a home. He is forever bound to experience the homes of others while never having a home himself. Italo Calvino explores this through a single lens: Venice, Marco's "home" city. His accounts tell the story of how this magical, ephemeral place morphs with time and age to the Emperor of China, Kublai Khan. The Khan interrogates Polo's experiences to expose the subjectivity and half-truths of his interpretations. However, the Khan's efforts are quickly thwarted through Polo's surreal ramblings, proving humanity's own micro-scale sequent occupance. Polo's relative humility shows the Khan that cities are liminal masses of brick, stone and glass. The poetic truth behind one's experience will never be the same as another.
Calvino very rarely explores the physicality of cities, instead focusing on vague notions of shape, citizenship, and the movement of the masses. All the accounts are written to place the people in conversation with their city, examining the relationships between social order and place or taking a magical realist approach and studying how the land itself interacts with the individual's sense of home. Italo Calvino's metaphysical jaunt through what makes a metropolis a metropolis consistently calls into question our own contributions to the space around us and how that impacts manmade spaces, nature, other inhabitants and other outsiders.
Invisible Cities reminds me of my favorite movie, Koyaanisqatsi, an experimental documentary about the human toll of living in a megalopolis and the reduction in identity we experience in the face of constant urbanization. Although Invisible Cities is nowhere near as nihilistic as Qatsi, they both rely on avant--garde means to convey the truths at the heart of their narratives. Invisible Cities argues that cities are subjective, ever-changing art installations and Qatsi argues that the scale at which we build at is unsustainable. Both pieces force their audiences to think about cities as networks of people whose influences are both omnipresent and completely obscured. They both recontextualize the scope of cities beyond our glass walls and neighborhoods to reveal just how interconnected our habits, lives, deaths, and desires really are.
Calvino very rarely explores the physicality of cities, instead focusing on vague notions of shape, citizenship, and the movement of the masses. All the accounts are written to place the people in conversation with their city, examining the relationships between social order and place or taking a magical realist approach and studying how the land itself interacts with the individual's sense of home. Italo Calvino's metaphysical jaunt through what makes a metropolis a metropolis consistently calls into question our own contributions to the space around us and how that impacts manmade spaces, nature, other inhabitants and other outsiders.
Invisible Cities reminds me of my favorite movie, Koyaanisqatsi, an experimental documentary about the human toll of living in a megalopolis and the reduction in identity we experience in the face of constant urbanization. Although Invisible Cities is nowhere near as nihilistic as Qatsi, they both rely on avant--garde means to convey the truths at the heart of their narratives. Invisible Cities argues that cities are subjective, ever-changing art installations and Qatsi argues that the scale at which we build at is unsustainable. Both pieces force their audiences to think about cities as networks of people whose influences are both omnipresent and completely obscured. They both recontextualize the scope of cities beyond our glass walls and neighborhoods to reveal just how interconnected our habits, lives, deaths, and desires really are.