Wait, What?

As the story develops the talks become more intriguing and ambiguous. It seems as if the two men never existed and they not only talk of cities that resemble only one: Venice, but also how their whole discussions cannot be true. Calvino slowly provides the reader with constant conversations where the conqueror and the merchant doubt everything they’ve discussed and how their whole existence is but a mere illusion. Marco Polo evaluates the impossibility of his feats as Kublai Khan tells him its not possible for one man to have traveled so much. Marco Polo replies “everything I see and do assumes meaning in a mental space…when I concentrate and reflect I find myself in this garden” basically not only has he dreamed every single visit, but he made them up based on one city (103). At this point nothing that has occurred actually makes sense, and I feel irritated by how poor did Marco Polo back up his stories. These even state that their “garden of thought” only exists in their minds and that each never stopped “from raising dust on the fields of battle; and I, from bargaining for sacks of pepper in distant bazaars” (103). The conversations have deteriorated to such a state both talkers hallucinate about their state of none reality. Further on Kublai Khan states: “we have proved that if we were here, we would not be”, Calvino has narrated many dubious events, but how does this conflictive conclusion helps the reader understand the book’s theme I do not know (118). I can only hope to read on and find more facts.