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.