If, in reading this essay, you immediately assume me to be a higher authority and get swept up in all I say you’ve missed my point entirely. Often, when we read essays pertaining to text, we are mesmerized by the implicit authority given to the author and just nod, sheep-like. It is easy to fall back into this child-like pattern when reading Invisible Cities William Gass’ essay on Italo Calvino’s book by the same name. His prose is like an acquired taste, it flows easily and enjoyable in spaces, but it is overly dense and pretentious in others. Often, it feels more like a short story in the making than a critique on another work. His undercurrent of supremacy makes it easy to agree blindly a sentiment that is aided by the fact that Gass has several correct and insightful points, such as pointing out there are nine circles of hell and nine groupings in Invisible Cities. He also parallels the lives of Marco Polo and Dante, and finally points out that the edition Calvino must have read of Marco Polo’s travels and that its illustrations of Asian cities and its effect on him. As much as I agree with all that, I don’t agree with his thesis, which states that in Invisible Cities more of a story to pass the time, as Polo’s stories were, a book “shaped by the mouth and meant for the ear” more than a book with a meaning hidden within it. Gass’s essay spends more time on Polo’s life story (he often seems to forget that the travels in Calvino’s tale are fictitious) than Calvino’s book and seems to imply that Invisible Cities is a long and pretty poem, rather than the more complex, philosophical work it actually is. He also seems to believe that the meaning is often clouded by the words and that we alter our perceptions of writing so quickly that the true meaning of the book is a great unimaginable unknown, a hidden book within the book
Invisible Cities is a short, nearly poetical book, but it pertains more to the realm of philosophy, as it takes a banal piece of life (the city) and looks for a deeper current of meaning and human feeling. It also has no deep secret, rather the words are there for themselves, the meaning is clear, and the open-ended questions are left to the imagination of both the reader and the author. The cities invite questions about death, life, routine, habit and unconscious human thought, the way we slip into a great pattern without ever noticing it. Calvino talks about human nature, invites us to question it, and even easily laughs at it, all the while sensing his own place inside of the tumult of human existence. He also has place for beauty and also has a sense of the right twist of phrase to let his meanings come across, as when he describes the city of Beersheba, where he warns against false piety and greed masquerading as lofty ambition. Or the city of Perinthia (my personal favorite) where Calvino pokes fun at the curious human devotion to religion, and the fact that we know nothing about our Gods, but an idea we have arbitrarily created. As he says, for all we know the gods are what we would view as monsters.
Monsters and death and other such elements of despair crop up along the text, but as any philosopher (or perhaps just an inquisitive mind, like the five-year old that asks “Why?” over and over) Calvino has room for both sides of life, good and bad, ugly or beautiful. Like Dante, he adds a touch of beauty without taking from the overall meaning of the text. Unlike Gass I don’t think beauty makes a text like this empty poetry, but instead all the more moving. In describing the people on the street in the city of Chloe an inner poet writes “A tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral” (51) The details give the reader a rich mental image, but it also serves to show human diversity, and then expose the underlying sexuality that binds all people to each other, even without realizing it. In Chloe, fantasies have already bound them, and will always keep them so. Calvino’s skill is reminiscent to Dante’s, who, in his heavily moralistic and often violent tale, also adds the needed artist’s hand. His little brushstrokes of beauty make such a gruesome text bearable (after all, it does describe Hell) such as in the final lines of the final Canto “Until I saw, through a round opening, some of the things of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there that we emerged, to see-once more-the stars.” (Canto XXXIV, lines 136-139)
As a reader, one doesn’t have to search for hidden meaning in beauty. In general, it is already there. Gass believes that one cannot find a deeper meaning to Invisible Cities but I believe it is readily apparent. It is of course not spelled out in big block letters, but the meaning is easy to grasp. The book is an invitation to reflection on human life and to be open to questions it. Calvino plays the role of a good friend elbowing you in the ribs to whisper a clever observation on the scene in front of you. The word in this text serves its purpose, it leads your ear to the author’s lips. For example in Inferno Dante comes across two figure caught in a flame one tells him “When I sailed away from Circe” (Canto XXVI lines 90-91) he never explicitly states who it is, but the reader knows it is Ulysses, the same way he never points out the poetic justice in his punishments (like flatterers being submerged in excrement) but the reader knows it is there.
Like Dante, who doesn’t need to hit you over with the head with a brick to make his point, Calvino, towards the end of Invisible Cities as Marco Polo and Kublai Khan talk, writes “ Not the labile mists of memory nor the dry transparence, but the charring of burned lives that forms a scab on the city, the sponge swollen with vital matter that no longer flows, the jam of past, present, future that blocks existences calcified in the illusion of movement: this is what you would find at the end of your journey.” (99) The end of the journey draws an obvious parallel to death (often referred to as the end of life’s journey) and this is an image reinforced by bringing to mind a wound and a fatal one at that, as it has stopped bleeding and has solidified, along with the corpse. In death there is also non-time, as a person now finds that their past present and future converge and they are no longer placed in any one of them, but somewhere else altogether. You can no longer live in “the labile mists of memory” or transparent present and there is no longer a future to move towards. Calvino also alludes to the permanent presence or idea of death in regular life, it is like “a scab on the city” a reminder of the coming end, casting a shadow on life and the way a city is organized (i.e. a cemetery) This passage bears eerie resemblance to the passage in Slaughter House-Five, where they arrive at the camp housing British prisoners of war. The human mass is described as liquid, while the dead hobo is described as “[he] could not flow, could not plop. He wasn’t liquid anymore. He was stone” (81) Vonnegut also sees life as a flowing thing (like blood) and dead a cold solid thing, like calcified sore alluded to here. Calvino is so mindful of the human obsession with death that five out of the fifty-five cities deal with the dead. The whole book is of course a subtle allegory as to life itself (a journey not yet at its end, but with an end in mind, and full of unknowns, with no planned path) and it is filled with the quandaries of daily life, such as relationships, superstition, solitudes, confusion, with the point of view of both the reader and the author (with all the questions and ideas that arise) as a backdrop, portrayed by Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.
Invisible Cities is an ode to the quiet philosopher in every man, who wonders quietly about life and death and the complex indescribable relationships between him and every member of his species. Italo Calvino brings forth all those ideas in poetic prose and deep thought. It is not just a pretty book of pseudo-poetry, but a crucial text that should be placed with other works like Epictetus’ Handbook. Without much trouble, or even conscious thought, the reader sees the brilliant insight this text offers into their lives and is invited to open their eyes and further question the world around them. In imitation of the Italian/Cuban author I invite you, my reader, to take a moment and think about what unseen thread wind around you and your city. I dare you.
Invisible Cities is a short, nearly poetical book, but it pertains more to the realm of philosophy, as it takes a banal piece of life (the city) and looks for a deeper current of meaning and human feeling. It also has no deep secret, rather the words are there for themselves, the meaning is clear, and the open-ended questions are left to the imagination of both the reader and the author. The cities invite questions about death, life, routine, habit and unconscious human thought, the way we slip into a great pattern without ever noticing it. Calvino talks about human nature, invites us to question it, and even easily laughs at it, all the while sensing his own place inside of the tumult of human existence. He also has place for beauty and also has a sense of the right twist of phrase to let his meanings come across, as when he describes the city of Beersheba, where he warns against false piety and greed masquerading as lofty ambition. Or the city of Perinthia (my personal favorite) where Calvino pokes fun at the curious human devotion to religion, and the fact that we know nothing about our Gods, but an idea we have arbitrarily created. As he says, for all we know the gods are what we would view as monsters.
Monsters and death and other such elements of despair crop up along the text, but as any philosopher (or perhaps just an inquisitive mind, like the five-year old that asks “Why?” over and over) Calvino has room for both sides of life, good and bad, ugly or beautiful. Like Dante, he adds a touch of beauty without taking from the overall meaning of the text. Unlike Gass I don’t think beauty makes a text like this empty poetry, but instead all the more moving. In describing the people on the street in the city of Chloe an inner poet writes “A tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral” (51) The details give the reader a rich mental image, but it also serves to show human diversity, and then expose the underlying sexuality that binds all people to each other, even without realizing it. In Chloe, fantasies have already bound them, and will always keep them so. Calvino’s skill is reminiscent to Dante’s, who, in his heavily moralistic and often violent tale, also adds the needed artist’s hand. His little brushstrokes of beauty make such a gruesome text bearable (after all, it does describe Hell) such as in the final lines of the final Canto “Until I saw, through a round opening, some of the things of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there that we emerged, to see-once more-the stars.” (Canto XXXIV, lines 136-139)
As a reader, one doesn’t have to search for hidden meaning in beauty. In general, it is already there. Gass believes that one cannot find a deeper meaning to Invisible Cities but I believe it is readily apparent. It is of course not spelled out in big block letters, but the meaning is easy to grasp. The book is an invitation to reflection on human life and to be open to questions it. Calvino plays the role of a good friend elbowing you in the ribs to whisper a clever observation on the scene in front of you. The word in this text serves its purpose, it leads your ear to the author’s lips. For example in Inferno Dante comes across two figure caught in a flame one tells him “When I sailed away from Circe” (Canto XXVI lines 90-91) he never explicitly states who it is, but the reader knows it is Ulysses, the same way he never points out the poetic justice in his punishments (like flatterers being submerged in excrement) but the reader knows it is there.
Like Dante, who doesn’t need to hit you over with the head with a brick to make his point, Calvino, towards the end of Invisible Cities as Marco Polo and Kublai Khan talk, writes “ Not the labile mists of memory nor the dry transparence, but the charring of burned lives that forms a scab on the city, the sponge swollen with vital matter that no longer flows, the jam of past, present, future that blocks existences calcified in the illusion of movement: this is what you would find at the end of your journey.” (99) The end of the journey draws an obvious parallel to death (often referred to as the end of life’s journey) and this is an image reinforced by bringing to mind a wound and a fatal one at that, as it has stopped bleeding and has solidified, along with the corpse. In death there is also non-time, as a person now finds that their past present and future converge and they are no longer placed in any one of them, but somewhere else altogether. You can no longer live in “the labile mists of memory” or transparent present and there is no longer a future to move towards. Calvino also alludes to the permanent presence or idea of death in regular life, it is like “a scab on the city” a reminder of the coming end, casting a shadow on life and the way a city is organized (i.e. a cemetery) This passage bears eerie resemblance to the passage in Slaughter House-Five, where they arrive at the camp housing British prisoners of war. The human mass is described as liquid, while the dead hobo is described as “[he] could not flow, could not plop. He wasn’t liquid anymore. He was stone” (81) Vonnegut also sees life as a flowing thing (like blood) and dead a cold solid thing, like calcified sore alluded to here. Calvino is so mindful of the human obsession with death that five out of the fifty-five cities deal with the dead. The whole book is of course a subtle allegory as to life itself (a journey not yet at its end, but with an end in mind, and full of unknowns, with no planned path) and it is filled with the quandaries of daily life, such as relationships, superstition, solitudes, confusion, with the point of view of both the reader and the author (with all the questions and ideas that arise) as a backdrop, portrayed by Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.
Invisible Cities is an ode to the quiet philosopher in every man, who wonders quietly about life and death and the complex indescribable relationships between him and every member of his species. Italo Calvino brings forth all those ideas in poetic prose and deep thought. It is not just a pretty book of pseudo-poetry, but a crucial text that should be placed with other works like Epictetus’ Handbook. Without much trouble, or even conscious thought, the reader sees the brilliant insight this text offers into their lives and is invited to open their eyes and further question the world around them. In imitation of the Italian/Cuban author I invite you, my reader, to take a moment and think about what unseen thread wind around you and your city. I dare you.
