Italo Calvino (2010)
Genre
Fantasy
Reading Time
180 min
Key Themes
See below
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Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan about many imagined cities, but each one is Venice, his home.
The story starts with Kublai Khan, an aging emperor of a large but fading empire. He talks with Marco Polo, a young explorer from Venice. Kublai Khan feels the burden of his rule, the many cities, and the empire's eventual decline. He looks for understanding and comfort from Marco Polo, who has traveled widely and tells of his experiences in various cities. At first, Marco Polo uses gestures, objects, and sounds because he does not yet speak the Tartar language. Kublai Khan understands these non-verbal cues, forming his own pictures of the cities. This early communication sets up the main relationship: the emperor wants order and meaning, and the traveler gives seemingly endless, often contradictory, descriptions.
Marco Polo's descriptions become spoken accounts. He groups cities by themes like 'Cities & Memory.' He talks about Diomira, a city where one arrives young and leaves old. This shows how memory and time change things. He then describes Isidora, a place where all the wonders from one's youth are recreated, but it does not bring the same happiness. This shows how memory can both improve and lessen reality, and how expecting a place is often different from experiencing it. These early descriptions show that Polo's memories are very personal and often sad, shaped by his own experiences and desires.
As Marco Polo continues, he groups cities under 'Cities & Desire.' He describes Dorothea, a city imagined before arrival, a city of youthful dreams and hopes that are always let down by reality. He compares this to Zaira, a city defined by its past, by the stories and customs of its people, where every street and stone holds a memory. The people of Zaira are so focused on their history that they do not notice the city's slow decay. These accounts look at how people project desires onto places and the complex link between a city's current form and its past. They often suggest that chasing ideal visions is pointless.
In the section 'Cities & Signs,' Marco Polo describes Zora, a city whose appearance comes entirely from memory and description, not from direct experience. It is a city that exists only by being told about. He then presents Aglaura, a city known for its careful records and descriptions, where every detail has been written down. Yet, the true nature of the city remains hard to grasp. The people try to make sense of the written accounts and their lived experience. They wonder if the city is more real in its descriptions or in its physical form. This looks at how cities are made of signs, where symbols can both show and hide their true character.
Marco Polo introduces 'Thin Cities,' like Octavia, a city held by ropes and chains between two mountain peaks. It exists in a fragile balance. Its people always know how unsteady it is, finding beauty in its delicate state. He also describes Armilla, a city with no walls, no ceilings, no floors, only the plumbing system remains. Nymphs and dryads live among the pipes. These imagined descriptions challenge the usual idea of what a city is. They present places that are more like ideas or symbols than physically strong. They show the temporary and often hidden structures that define city life.
Under 'Cities & Eyes,' Marco Polo tells about Eusapia, a city where the living and the dead share the same spaces. The dead use them at night, the living by day. This dual existence creates a haunting thought on life, death, and how memory continues in a place. He also describes Baucis, a city built on stilts, where the people never touch the ground. They live above the clouds, watching the earth below. These cities show how perception shapes reality and how different viewpoints—from the living and the dead, or from above and below—can show completely different sides of one city space.
In 'Cities & Names,' Polo presents Hypatia, a city that often changes its name and identity. This shows how trends are fleeting and how city spaces are always being remade. He then describes Leonia, a city that carefully throws away all its old things every day, piling them up on the outskirts. This constant renewal creates a strange scene of new consumption inside the city, next to mountains of discarded waste outside. This makes one think about consumerism, waste, and the endless search for newness. These descriptions show how a city's identity is shaped by its names, its history, and its relationship with physical objects.
Under 'Cities & the Dead,' Marco Polo describes Eudoxia, a city whose carpet shows its true form, a map of its past, present, and future. This suggests that the city's essence is woven into its history and stories. He also talks about Moriana, a city with two faces: one for the living, a busy city, and one for the dead, a quiet, forgotten cemetery. The living avoid the dead, yet the dead's city holds the true past and meaning of the city. These cities look at the complex relationship between the living and their ancestors, and how a city's identity is tied to the memories and legacies of those who once lived there.
Marco Polo describes cities related to the sky, such as Theodora, a city with two forms: one as it is, and one as its builders imagine it, which they believe exists in the stars. This shows the gap between ideal and reality, and humanity's wish for perfect forms. He then tells about Penthesilea, a city of constant war and destruction. Building is mixed with tearing down, symbolizing the cycle of human conflict and how creation is temporary. These cities reflect on humanity's place in the universe and the conflicts within city development.
In 'Cities & Networks,' Polo describes Zemrude, a city where the people spend their lives trying to understand a map that supposedly shows its real layout. They eventually realize the map itself is the city. This shows how interpreting things shapes city life. He also presents Sophronia, a city made of two parts: one permanent, made of stone and marble, and another temporary, a busy fairground that is taken down and rebuilt every year. This shows the changing relationship between permanent and temporary, and the visible and invisible parts that make up a city's identity and how it works.
Throughout their talks, Kublai Khan increasingly suspects that all of Marco Polo's imagined cities, despite their differences, are quietly referring to one city. He eventually asks Polo directly. He realizes that the explorer has been describing Venice, his own hometown, from many viewpoints. Polo never says this directly, but it becomes an unstated understanding between them. This moment changes the story from just descriptions to a deep thought on how we see things, memory, and the shared qualities that define any city. It suggests that all cities are, in a way, different versions of one very personal experience.
As Kublai Khan understands that all cities lead back to Venice, he thinks about the eventual decay of his own large empire. He imagines a future where the world becomes one continuous, unchanging city, a terrible place of sameness and no meaning. He asks Marco Polo how to avoid this coming disaster. Marco Polo, with deep thought, suggests that the only way to avoid trouble is to find and recognize what is not trouble. He says to give it room, learn to recognize it, and make it last. This final conversation offers a bit of hope. It stresses how important it is to look for beauty, meaning, and difference even when decay and disappointment seem unavoidable.
The Protagonist/Narrator
Marco Polo evolves from a factual reporter to a philosophical guide, ultimately revealing that his descriptions are deeply personal and universal.
The Antagonist (in a philosophical sense)/Listener
Kublai Khan moves from a state of imperial weariness to a profound philosophical despair, eventually seeking advice on how to navigate the 'hell' of uniformity.
Calvino looks at how reality is not fixed but is built by individual perception, memory, and desire. Each city Marco Polo describes is his own view, filtered through his experiences. The repeated idea that all cities might be Venice shows how personal views shape our understanding of places. For example, the description of Zora, a city known only through description, or Aglaura, where records hide reality, shows that objective truth is unreliable and subjective interpretation is powerful. The book suggests that a city's 'truth' is not its physical form, but how it is seen and remembered.
“''You take delight in describing cities, Marco, but you never tell me if they are true or false...'' ''All cities are imaginary for me, and I give them imaginary names. I want to tell you about them as if they were real, but they are not.''”
Memory is a strong force in the city descriptions. It often shapes their current form and the experiences of the people there. Cities like Diomira and Isidora are directly linked to how people remember their past, showing the mixed feelings of nostalgia. Zaira, caught up in its own history, shows how relying too much on the past can make people blind to present decay. Remembering itself is shown to be a creative process, always changing the cities in Marco Polo's mind, making them more vivid or sadder. The book suggests that cities are not just physical spaces, but living places that hold shared and individual memories.
“''The city of Isidora is made of what you remember and what you forget.''”
Calvino often shows cities as complex systems of signs, symbols, and stories that need to be understood. Cities like Zora exist mainly through description, while Aglaura is defined by its careful records. This makes one question if the city is more real in its documents than in its physical form. Zemrude's people are obsessed with a map that is actually the city itself, showing that interpreting signs creates reality. This theme shows how language, stories, and cultural rules are key to understanding and experiencing city environments. It suggests that a city is like a text waiting to be read.
“''The city of Zora, however, has a quality that few other cities possess: it is unforgettable. To make it unforgettable, Zora has only to be described once. For it is the city where all things are known by their names.''”
Kublai Khan's effort to bring order to his vast, messy empire and his fear of an undifferentiated 'hell' of sameness drives much of the story. Marco Polo's descriptions, though seemingly different, try to categorize and find patterns within the endless variety of cities, creating a kind of order. However, the descriptions often reveal underlying disorder, decay, or futility. The final talk between Polo and Khan, where Polo advises looking for what 'is not hell,' means a search for meaning and difference among the overwhelming forces of decay and disappointment. It suggests that meaning must be actively sought and kept.
“''The inferno where we live is not something that will be; if it exists, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them last, give them space.''”
The conversations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo encase the city descriptions.
The entire book is structured as a frame narrative, where the ongoing dialogue and philosophical reflections between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo serve as the encompassing frame for the individual descriptions of the 'invisible cities.' This device allows for a layered reading: the cities themselves are fascinating, but the frame narrative adds a meta-commentary on storytelling, memory, and the nature of empire. It provides a consistent context and a philosophical anchor for the otherwise disparate descriptions, allowing the deeper themes to emerge through the interaction of the two main characters.
Cities are grouped into thematic categories (e.g., 'Cities & Memory', 'Cities & Desire').
Calvino organizes Marco Polo's city descriptions into eleven thematic categories, such as 'Cities & Memory,' 'Cities & Desire,' 'Cities & Signs,' and 'Thin Cities.' This systematic categorization is a key structural device that brings a semblance of order to the seemingly infinite variety of urban forms. It allows Calvino to explore different facets of urban existence and human experience through distinct lenses. While the categories provide a framework, the cities within them often defy easy classification, adding to the book's richness and challenging the reader's own attempts at categorization.
Venice implicitly represents all cities and the act of memory/description.
Although only implicitly revealed, Venice functions as a powerful symbol throughout the book. Marco Polo's eventual confession (or the Khan's realization) that all his described cities are, in some sense, variations of Venice, elevates the city from a specific place to a universal archetype. Venice symbolizes the deeply personal and subjective nature of memory, the fluidity of identity, and the idea that every city, regardless of its unique features, shares fundamental human experiences and aspirations. It becomes a metaphor for the act of description itself, where every story, no matter how fantastical, is rooted in a personal truth.
Each city serves as an allegorical representation of human conditions or philosophical concepts.
Many of the 'invisible cities' function as allegories, representing abstract ideas or human conditions rather than literal places. For example, Leonia allegorizes consumerism and waste, while Octavia allegorizes the precarious balance of existence. The descriptions are not merely fantastical but are carefully constructed to illuminate philosophical concepts about memory, desire, identity, language, and the relationship between humanity and its built environment. This device allows Calvino to explore complex ideas through vivid, imaginative scenarios, making the abstract tangible and relatable, without being overtly didactic.
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
— Kublai Khan and Marco Polo discuss the nature of cities in their conversations.
“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together.”
— Marco Polo describes the city of Armilla, reflecting on human existence.
“You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”
— Marco Polo explains how cities reveal themselves to travelers.
“It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”
— A reflection on storytelling and perception in the dialogues between Kublai and Marco.
“The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past.”
— Describing the city of Zaira, where history is embedded in its architecture.
“With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear.”
— Kublai Khan muses on the symbolic nature of cities and dreams.
“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
— Marco Polo reflects on how travel reveals hidden aspects of the self.
“In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city's life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency.”
— Description of the city of Ersilia, where social connections are physically represented.
“The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born.”
— Kublai Khan contemplates the infinite possibilities of urban forms.
“Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind's phantasms.”
— Kublai Khan questions the reality of his vast empire during his conversations with Marco.
“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”
— Describing how history is physically inscribed in the city of Zaira.
“Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.”
— A philosophical insight shared during the discussions about truth and perception.
“The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.”
— Reflection on the experience of travel and self-discovery in foreign cities.
“Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.”
— Narrator describes the dynamic between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.
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Italo Calvino was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952–1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If on a winter's night a traveler (1979).
