Exploring Calvino's 'Invisible Cities'

Only the mind explores in Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities." But, that statement, however, doesn't mean to repeat the obvious that reading entails. It is a stretch of the imagination, as they say, to believe a city's absurd qualities, sometimes upon discovery, as though persisting upon the page. Such is the beauty and the genius behind one of 20th century's great fiction by the Cuban-born writer and master storyteller Italo Calvino.

 According to architect and book enthusiast Joe Cianciotto, it is widely considered that "Invisible Cities," first published in 1972, is a deconstruction of the 13th-century travelogue "The Travels of Marco Polo" that depicts the journey of the famous Venetian merchant. Joe further states that "Invisible Cities" is a multiple retelling of Venice, told in 11 thematic qualities - Memory, Desire, Signs, Thin, Trading, Eyes, Names, Dead, Sky, Continuous, and Hidden - spread among 55 cities, all bearing female names, over the book's nine chapters.

These imagined cities, having a semblance of some form of activity, acquires permanence in the instability of their parts. Take, for example, the city called Armilla: "It has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the house should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be: a forest of pipes that end in taps, showers, spouts, overflows." And finally, the city of Thekla reminds of modern predilection in altering the natural environment, thus: "If you ask, "why is Thekla's construction taking such a long time?" the inhabitants continue hoisting sacks, lowering leaded strings, moving long brushes up and down, as they answer, "So that its destruction cannot begin."