Invisible Cities

What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book

Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino

Literature

Jul 31, 2018

As light as a cloud and just as beautiful, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities floats across the mind’s sky and seduces our vision. Purporting to be a record of conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, in which the inveterate traveler describes the many extraordinary cities he has encountered in his wanderings, it is in fact a fiction of poetic and philosophical charm that unfolds in brief descriptions of fifty-five fantastic places, from Anastasia, “a city with concentric canals watering it and kites flying over it,” to Zenobia, which, “though set on dry terrain . . . stands on high pilings, and the houses are of bamboo and zinc, with many platforms and balconies placed on stilts at various heights.” To read Invisible Cities is to discover an unsuspected mythology whose truths are inexplicably recognizable; it is unlike nearly every other book you will ever open. A true master of the fabulous, Calvino succeeds by making his readers feel they are as imaginative as he is.

Add Reply

James O'Doherty

Feb 23, 2019

Challenging, stimulating, precise writing, a book of ideas to get one questioning

Add Reply

Mariella Rinaldi

Aug 26, 2019

«[…] E Polo: — L'inferno dei viventi non è qualcosa che sarà; se ce n'è uno, è quello che è già qui, l'inferno che abitiamo tutti i giorni, che formiamo stando insieme. Due modi ci sono per non soffrirne. Il primo riesce facile a molti: accettare l'inferno e diventarne parte fino al punto di non vederlo più. Il secondo è rischioso ed esige attenzione e apprendimento continui: cercare saper riconoscere chi e cosa, in mezzo all'inferno, non è inferno, e farlo durare, e dargli spazio.»

Add Reply

Erik Morris

Feb 17, 2022

I discovered I was discovering a world of imagination too late. I need to reread this without trying to put all of the pieces together.

We use cookies on this website