Response to Inivisible Cities

             While Marco Polo was a 13th-century explorer, Calvino's novel Invisible Cities includes detailed accounts of architecture and advances that are from the modern era, such as tall, sky-scraper-like buildings, airports, and metropolitan cities.  It would appear that Calvino mixes eras as a way to comment on modern social and political developments, much like Anna Maria Ortese in The Iguana.  By making the setting timeless, or otherwise unclear, Calvino is able to indirectly criticize the modern age.  Though the novel's placement in time is unclear, the function of time within the novel is made explicit: it is destructive.  In calling attention to the destructive nature of time as while as the unpredictability of the future, Calvino is able to set the stage for his indirect analysis of human nature.  The novel has the reader questioning Calvino's ultimate view of humanity: it is unclear whether it is optimistic, pessimistic, divided ? One thing is clear, and that is that in such a state of uncertainty, the fantastic is not set by the plot, but by the language that is used.  Calvino offers criticism of the modern era by endorsing the value he finds in returning to a place that is already known.  This especially evident in Marco Polo's meditations on the importance of perspective.  Ultimately, Calvino seems to be saying that there is always something new to be learned from the past--form the places we've already come to know.  This explains his Nihlistic point of view in regards to the future.