From there I revisited Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972, English language
translation 1974 by William Weaver). Calvino writes in Marco Polo’s voice as he relates stories to Kublai Khan
about cities in his vast empire across the globe. Why am I relating this book to you? Because you are a reader
every bit as much as Khan was a conqueror. Books are your kingdom, and though
you may not have ever visited Invisible
Cities before, it is there waiting for you.
The book is arranged mathematically so that
in 55 separate sections Marco Polo relates a type of city five times. That
makes for eleven city types. These sections are divided into larger blocks of
nine, with ten sections in the first and ninth blocks, and five sections in the
remaining blocks of two through eight. Framing each block are interstitial
passages rendered in italics which narrate the interactions between Marco and
the Great Khan. These interstitial passages loosely form an overarching story
that ties all of the sections together into one narrative whole of Marco’s travels
and the expression of wonders in Kublai’s empire (also the world at large).
I have heard the tales of other travelers
to Invisible Cities. They—who say it
is a monument to postmodern literature, or that it is a wondrous artifact of
magical realism—would be the same to point to Ulysses as the greatest novel of the 20th century, or to
The Coast of Chicago as a collection
of dreamlike landscapes. Which is to say nothing of the value of the book
itself, what it provides to its citizens in the way of sustenance, inspiration,
direction, or shelter. Invisible Cities
is a book that is designed to show you how it can be read and how to read other
books, all books, as well.
During my visit this time I found a section
within Invisible Cities titled “Invisible
Cities.” It was not a section I recalled reading before, and in truth if you
pick up a copy right now it won’t be in the table of contents nor will you
happen upon it suddenly flipping through the page headings. As the title
suggests, it’s invisible, and can only be discerned indirectly. Nothing is
truly invisible, but it can be difficult to recognize unless you look for the
distortion, the particular bend in the refraction of light that tells you
something is there even though you cannot see it.
In this hidden section I saw not Venice, not the fanciful descriptions of cities made of water pipes or maps arranged like stellar constellations. No, I saw the city that was made of words, the buildings standing on the foundation of ideas. I saw myself as a resident of this city, not only buying my groceries and driving down its streets, but changing the landscape and building a new school. We are not all academics or English majors, but we are all students of literature. Walking the alleys and byways of Invisible Cities is like opening a single book to find a great library within.
