Invisible Cities in On Paths Unknown

Jun 08, 2013 Dolors rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-ever, read-in-2015

Theories.
One could easily declare that the protagonists of this book are the cities, which are different versions of the same city that doesn’t really exist, only maybe in the writer’s mind. Either Venice or Paris, Calvino’s cities are a trip through imagination to lives never had, doors never opened, people never met.

Someone else might appoint the reader as the real protagonist of Calvino’s book for he becomes the traveler who visits these cities mentally, which are nothing else than representa Theories.
One could easily declare that the protagonists of this book are the cities, which are different versions of the same city that doesn’t really exist, only maybe in the writer’s mind. Either Venice or Paris, Calvino’s cities are a trip through imagination to lives never had, doors never opened, people never met.

Someone else might appoint the reader as the real protagonist of Calvino’s book for he becomes the traveler who visits these cities mentally, which are nothing else than representations of his current mood, his past experiences and his unverbalized longings. The cities change shape and adapt to the traveler’s desires, they blend together into that tenuous moment between sleep and waking, the split second when dreaming occurs.

The interpretation of a third reader might allude to the allegoric meaning of the interludes between the extravagant descriptions of the cities where Marco Polo proves the deceitful nature of language to the Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan through silent gesticulation. The Venetian merchant
smuggles moods, states of grace and elegies instead of material riches, maybe as a metaphor to show the Chinese ruler that conquering cities is like accumulating empty shells, a nothingness that lacks cohesion, for their true wealth is to be found in their people, not in the physical space they inhabit. How does one imprison souls?

Free style.
Truth is I am unable to tell you what this book is about. It’s certainly not about what I wrote above. But maybe it is. Every reader will discover its meaning in the surrealistic patterns of titles and alternating themes that give shape to an unrepeatable skyline, a personal print that will only fit the soul of each traveler.

To me, Calvino’s cities represent the deadlock between dreams and reality and the way we connect them in our minds to dominate the pulse of time. Unsought memories carry the heavy load of past experiences, and that burden of nostalgia opens the door to unfulfilled desires that materialize into the tangible futures we will never own. How many lives can the keen observer recreate in his mind? How many times can we alter the past in mental recreation, bring the dead back to life by thinking of them? But remembering doesn’t come face forward, it ambushes you around sideways and oftentimes traps you in a deadly embrace, and the reflected image may replace the original thought.

In the end, amidst a labyrinthine maze of canals, ancient Gods of locals and foreigners clinging to the threshold of upside down doors and black-and-white strings attaching relationships between the inhabitants of a spider-web city, I couldn’t resist the allure of Maurilia. This was the city where I could finally put my discombobulated mind at rest. The comfortable safety of its sepia postcards brought me back to the cozy evenings with granny when I had only to concentrate on the invisible map her bonny fingers scratched gently on my back after a tepid day at school. Calvino led me to here and now to type these words that make her precious presence more real than ever. I can even delineate the shape of the sound of her fluttering voice clearly in my head. Hello, Granny. Thank you, Calvino.
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Dec 06, 2013 Himanshu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: quickies, hulk-smashed-my-mind, favorites, reviewed, want-to-live-in, magical-realism

What in the world was Calvino smoking?

This is my immediate reaction and I can't get over it. Now that I look at the copy that I have just read, it seems absolutely impossible to have been written. Absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. ...more

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Jul 01, 2013 Rand marked it as to-read

AND SO AT LAST there is the City of Sound, spanning over seven hours and seven minutes, in which a host of musicians and poets and artists all pay homage to Calvino's vision of Marco Polo's vision. Therein could be heard Canadian beat experiments, an Opera or two, Jazz Italia, piano and more plus drone the union of all of which conveys a translation, at times indirect, at times not, of something you have (or have yet to) to have heard. ...more

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May 10, 2013 Zorlon Zorlon rated it really liked it

Though much less cohesive as far as narrative and actual progression of any kind of story, this is one of Calvino's more poetic works. Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan about the cities of his empire he'll never be able to know. But does Polo actually know, asks the Khan? What are the cities Polo is telling him about? There is much beauty in the descriptions of the various cities and they are grouped sporadically into different types, named for various women. Calvino manages to imbue each of the 50 o ...more

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Aug 28, 2015 Phil J rated it really liked it

A dumb person's review:

I would probably like this book more if I was smarter. A smart person or a person with a lot of time on their hands would create a vast chart containing all the themes and motifs, all the relationships between the elements, and their development as connected to the Polo/Khan scenes. That smart person is not me.

To me, this was a mosaic of vignettes. Each vignette described a city or a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The Polo/Khan pieces are supposedly a fra ...more

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Jul 04, 2013 Ken rated it it was amazing

This book, real or imagined, can be appreciated best in a mental state of half-sleep, I believe. Calvino's twists and turns of vocabulary and games of artifice are shrewd and poignant. In each new mirage, he creates questions that link the human condition to the structure of man's environment, and his relationship with the natural world, and with himself. Though the volume is short and the type set large, and though each "chapter" may only be a page or two, there is much to be found here, a grea ...more

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