Invisible Cities

Invisible Cities is a very difficult read. It is a fictional discussion between Marco Polo and Kublai Kahn on the cities that comprise his empire. The descriptions are almost read like poems, with each city being a part of a larger group of cities. The title of the book is explained while they are engaged in dialogue, Kublai Kahn states “Your cities do not exist. Perhaps they have never existed. It is sure they will never exist again. Why do you amuse yourself with consolatory fables” (Calvino, 59). The whole concept of the book is just Marco Polo describing idealized cities, they are invisible because they do not exist. That doesn’t mean they aren’t important rather it implies that they are something we cannot perceive with our senses, that they have an intrinsic quality deeper than that.

But it draws questions of how he is coming up with these fantastic images of these cities. Kublai asks for him to describe the city of Venice, Marco Polo hometown. He replies “Every time I describe a city, I am saying smoothing about Venice”(Calvino, 86). This means that Marco Polo descriptions are merely based on his unique perspective rather than the accounts of others. The importance of perspective is an idea that Calvino is known to display in his novels so it makes quite a bit of sense he does it here.