Dreams or Reality?

            I noticed that the book is also related to the movie Inception. I believe this because the whole book is based on the description of cities that don't even exist. They are cities created in the minds and dreams of Khan and Marco Polo, as well as in Inception, where people control their dreams and confuse them with reality. This kind of confusion can also be seen in the book because the cities, despite the fact that they are completely fictional, seem very real to the characters and the audience as well. In my case, even though I knew the cities were just a product of their imagination, the descriptions were so precise and clear that they seemed real, especially to them.

            In the movie and the book, there is a very thin line between imagination (in dreams) and reality. In Inception, the characters sometimes don't know whether they are dreaming or not, since the feeling is so pure, strong, and real. The same thing happens in Invisible Cities to Marco Polo and Khan. For them, the cities are real, even though they are completely aware of the fact that they are just the product of their imagination. The thin line between reality and imagination can also be seen when Marco Polo says that the cities he was making up were actually Venice. This definitely took me by surprise because they were always talking about creating cities and imagining them, and to think that he was referring to Venice through these detailed descriptions of all these cities was completely unexpected.

            When the audience is informed that the cities were actually Venice, the thin line between reality and imagination can be seen significantly, just like in Inception, where it is seen throughout the whole movie. Even though both characters are aware that they are talking about Venice, they keep on describing more cities after that, as if it weren't allowed to describe Venice directly. Inception relates to this because of the way the characters react towards their dreams: Even though they know they confuse reality with their dreams, dreaming and the actual concept of building their dreams with their sub conscience is their natural way of living. They literally design their dreams, just like Kahn and Marco Polo design the cities the audience thinks are fictional until Marco Polo says its Venice.

     


   The ending was surprising, and I never would have figured it out on my own. However, as soon as I knew that the cities were a compilation of Venice, it all made sense. I liked how the author creates an atmosphere of ambiguity and uncertainty through the different descriptions of every city, dialogue between the characters, and the description of imagination turning out to be reality.

The Circles of Hell (and Cities)

            As I kept reading, I found more ways to connect the book to other aspects different from society. One of these relationships I found was the city of Hypatia and the book Dante´s Inferno. Before, even though the descriptions of the different cities were percise, deep, and unique, I thought the way Hypatia was described or the way Hypathia was imagined by Marco Polo was different. It is even said that the city is different "because the change regards not words, but things" (pg. 47).

            I believe this because in this city it seems as if everything and everyone were divided by sections or being assigned to certain places. This differs from the other cities because first of all, the people of the cities were barely mentioned, and second of all, only the aspects the city had were told to the audience (skyscrapers, ports, buildings, and of course, the opinion of the narrator). In Hypatia, not only the physical aspects of the city are described but also the people, as well as what place of the city the people belong to. That is why I related it to Dante´s Inferno.

            In Dante´s Inferno, different souls belong in certain circles of hell depending on what they did. For example, the ones that committed suicide were in a different circle than the ones who were murdered or created suffering. In Hypatia, this is similar. "I walked among the hedges, sure I would discover young and beautiful ladies bathing; but at the bottom of the water, crabs were biting the eyes of the suicides, stones tied around their necks, their hair with seaweed" (pg.47). This is related to Dante´s Inferno because all the suicides are at one place, the hedges, being bitten by crabs, as if they were enduring the same punnishment in a certain way.

            "The central hall was barred by iron gratings: convicts with black chains on their feet were hauling up basalt blocks from a quarry that opened underground" (pg. 47). Again, the convicts, found guilty for crime, were all being punnished this way and were all at the same place, suffering equally just like the miserable souls of Dante´s Inferno. This can also be seen with the musicians of Hypatia, "...to be sought in the cementeries: the musicians hide in the tombs; from grave to grave flute trills, harp chords answer one another" (pg. 48).

            Not only are the city as well as the book similar to each other in the sense that "types" of people belong in the same place but also because these people are suffering or find themselves in tragic, nostalgic, and dark places.

There are Two Sides to Every Story... I Think

         



            At the beginning of the second section of the book, I noticed uncertainty and ambiguity. It starts off with Marco Polo and Khan still discussing Marco Polo´s unuseful voyages and descriptions."At this point Kublai Kahn interrupted him or imagined interrupting him, or Marco Polo imagined himself interrupted, with a question such as: You advance always with your head turned back? or is whar you see always behind you? or rather, does your journey take place only in the past?" (pg. 28).

       
             I believe there is uncertainty here because the current state or situation the characters are in is not completely described or reassured. This is so because its as if the author werent sure or completely clear in describing what was happening. For instance, by saying "...interrupted him or imagined interrupting him", what is happenine it is not clear. Did Khan interrupt him or not? This is questioned thanks to the use of the word "or" since it doesnt give a reassuring or percise image of the situation to the audience. This causes ambiguity since the situation is very vague but however it can be interpreted in more than one way.


       

Pause

            So far, the only thing I have been blogging about is the way the cities are described in the book and what they represent for me. However, I am now going to talk about the way the story changes in terms of narrator, time, and place.

            Towards the end of the first section of the book, Marco Polo is no longer describing cities. The story completely shifts to the situation in which Marco Polo is with the emperor Kublai Kahn. The narrator changes as well: now its not Marco polo talking in first person but instead its an omniscient narrator that talks in first person. I found it interesting how as soon as the situaton changed this way, it is ritten in italics, as if the narrator was making a parenthesis with the change of the situation.

            Not only does the situation, narrator, and timing changed but I also interpreted Khan as a way of criticism towards society and human nature. When Marco Polo reported back from his voyages, he didnt bring what the emperor was looking for. Khan was interested in gold, therefore power, and Marco Polo always came  from his voyages depicting cities as "the leap of a fish escaping the cormorant´s beak to fall into a net, , a naked man running throgh fire unscorched, and as a skull, its teeth green with mold, clenching a round, white pearl" (pg. 21).

             This made me wonder whether those descriptions or interpretations of the cities by Marco Polo will mean anything farther in the book, and I also ask myself why Calvino writes this part of the story as if it were a parenthesis, an interference, and a situation aside from what the book had previously been about.

             The fact that all Khan was looking for was gold and not these descriptions Marco Polo brought with thim relates to the behavior of many people in a society today. All we are interested is money and power, instead of other things that matter more. So I am asking myself, are those descriptions by Marco Polo going to be important later in the book? Do they mean something more?

Our Poor Society...

            As I read further in the book, I connected the way the different cities were described to what societies are today. In my opinion, the author reflects what society is (boring, repetitive, unfair, critical, etc) through the descriptions of what one sees in the cities.

            For instance, I found it interesting that in Despina it is contradicting how the camel driver sees and thinks of the ocean, the ports, steamboats and sails. On the other hand, the person that comes by boat thinks of tobacco leaves, fruit, wine, and wishes to be taken out of "the desert of the sea". By "being taken out of the desert of the sea" (pg. 17) I imagined emptiness, as if that vague yet clear description was reflecting how we are never satisfied, and how we always want something different from what we have.

            The city of Zirma gave me the impression that it reflected how repetitive society is as well as our daily lives. "The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind" (pg. 19) in my opinion is a way the author in a way describes society, as well as the cycle of repetition we live in. This is also reflected in the quote "Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist" (pg. 19). For me Zirma is an interpretation of our selfish and boring society, since its routines never change, creating one single image and way of living.

            The way the narrator refers to religion in the city of Isaura caught my attention. He described the different forms of religion as a consequence, even though he never really explained why they were such a problem. "Consequently, two forms of religion exist in Isaura" (pg. 20). He only described the two religions, but did not explain the problems the different beliefs brought nor why they were a consequence. I believe that this reference to the consequences religion brought to Isaura was not explained because in a society religion will always bring out differences and problems amongst people. It is something we should get used to, now that we find ourselves submerged our selfishness and lack of respect human nature has become.

Lets Take a Journey

             This book has been very different from texts I've read in the past. Not only because the plot is extremely rare, but also because of the descriptions, narrator, and way of writing the author has. The narrator uses a different technique every time he will describe a new city.

             The narrator talks in first and second person. He continually interferes and gives his opinion, for instance when he states "the city says everything you must think" (pg 14) he states his opinion on the city of Tamara. One of the techniques he used that got my attention was the very long and very short sentences he used. For example when he describes Isidora, there are a lot of pauses , therefore the sentences are very short and it is very concise. On the other hand, right after describing Isidora and moving to Dorothea, the sentences are much longer, there are less pauses, and more description is provided.

            An aspect I found very ironic was when the narrator describes Zora. It gave me the impression that it was a satire towards society because he described it as "motionless and always the same, in order to be more easily remembered, Zora has languished, disintegrated, disappeared. The earth has forgotten her"(pg. 16). This called my attention because Zora had been described as a city that was impossible to forget, as if there were something special or odd about it. However, Zora was a very simple city and was similar to cities today. There were houses along the streets with doors and windows in the houses, but "nothing in them possesses a special beauty or rarity". So this made me wonder why would Zora be so unforgettable if it had nothing special? It made me think that the author was making fun of society.

             Descriptions also caught my attention. When the narrator was going to describe a city, he focused on one set of things rather than talking about the entire city. For example, this is seen in the very first city he describes, Diomira. "Diomira, a city with sixty silver domes, bronze statues of all the gods, streets paved with lead, a crystal theater, a golden cock that crows each morning on a tower" (pg. 7). I thought it was interesting how the narrator only used adjectives that described valuable or fancy things, for instance silver, bronze, lead, crystal, and golden. The fact that the narrator only described these beauties got my attention. This is so because he didn't focus on any other thing the city had to offer but only these precious and valuable aspects.