A conqueror, a merchant and some other cities

Invisible cities are the distinct stories a stranger brings to a great conqueror who knows nothing about his empire. Apparently, he has grown fond of this man who seems to capture the essence of each of the cities he visits. Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant, breaks each city in rather symbolic ways where a city may be “a honeycomb in whose cells each of us can place the things he wants to remember” or where “gods live in buckets that rise” (15)(20). Accompanied by the descriptions, complications are also numbered. On the first, since everything is used to successfully remember everything the city has “disappeared”. Because it needed to stay the same so it could be remembered, Zora, the city that reminds you of everything was forgotten. How ironic is that. Additionally, Marco Polo tells of a city that when you get on a camel it reminds of a boat, and when you get on a boat it reminds you of a camel. Here, he portrays the contrasting perspectives visitors may have regarding the same city. Each of them desired the opposite. Each “see Despina, a border city between two deserts” may it be water or sand you travel, you will desire what the other brings. Clearly, he wants to redefine the concept of what a city truly is through a number of categories. The city falls into one category based on the reactions it evokes on the traveler or the most quintessential characteristics it holds. For instance, Calvino defines Zirma as a city of repeated signs, so that at least one will create an impact. He then concludes “memory is redundant” because it repeats the city signs so that the city truly exists (19). Just as the previous descriptions of cities, Zirma forces Calvino to expose a paradoxical truth where “the city is redundant”, because it repeats itself to be remembered (19). These remarks make no sense, but that is the purpose: force the reader to evaluate the complexity of cities and the different relations we share with them. Since one man may view the same sign over and over in the city, while another might simply be seeing the same sign over and over again in his mind.

Marco Polo’s descriptions of the cities are immensely varied and not very straightforward. However he always ends with some solid insight regarding the nature of the city or the most probable reaction it will bring on its visitors. Calvino demands a lot of thinking from his reader, although I have not truly made a conclusion about the descriptions he makes. I will dare say he wants the reader to understand the impact engineering has on the human mind and how the human mind plays with the surroundings as well.

            Marco Polo’s relation to The Great Khan is no less complicated. His descriptions are transmitted through physical movements or animal sounds, for he does not speak Tartar. Yet, Marco Polo became his favorite ambassador, he illustrates cities in ways his other diplomats had never tried to. Where the others saw “famine, extortion, conspiracies…” Marco Polo portrays “the gaze of a man meditating, lost in thought” (27). He argues that even if the Khan rides through all of his empire, if he keeps the orthodox mind of an ambassador he will only see the same things. Marco Polo thinks he comprehends the origins and functions of cities. On the other hand, The Great Khan seems lost in the insurmountable territory his controls. He truly wishes to understand it, but he knows it might be impossible to do so. Calvino takes us into the mind of a traveler discussing with a conqueror, who seeks the knowledge to correctly control his empire.