Invisible Cities

Part 2 Introduction

Kublai Khan asserts that the difference between Polo and his other ambassadors is that the latter bring military and political reports, whereas Polo brings his impressions of the cities and their inhabitants.

Polo imagines Khan interrupting him to ask whether his journeys take place in the past, even as they aspire to encounter novelties. Polo explains that while he moves forward, his past changes “according to the route he has followed” (24). This is because in each destination, Polo encounters lives that he could have lived had he not traveled. However, he always feels compelled to journey to another city, where another of his potential lives will catch up with him. He concludes that “elsewhere is a negative mirror,” where the traveler “recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and never will have” (24).

“Cities and Memory 5”

In Maurilia, the traveler visits the present city and at the same time examines some postcards of how it was in the past. While he feels obliged to praise the obsolete postcard city to the locals, he believes that were Maurilia to have stayed the same, he would have perceived no additional beauty in its old structures. It is as though the modern and old versions of the city are two different settlements.

“Cities and Desire 4”

The city of Fedora has a metal building with a crystal globe in every room. Each globe contains a model of an alternative Fedora, which constitutes the maker’s vision of the idealized version of that city. However, Fedora was changing even as the maker worked on their model, meaning that “what had been until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe” (28).

Polo addresses Khan directly, saying that there must be space in the map of his empire for both real representations of cities and idealized ones like the crystal globe representations. This will enable the preservation of everything that was once imagined possible for the city.

“Cities and Signs 3”

It is said that on visiting a new city, travelers will immediately distinguish the landmarks they believe to be universal to all cities, meaning that they seek “a city made only of differences” (29). However, Zoe is exceptional because the traveler is unable to distinguish this city’s features and assign them to a recognizable purpose. This leads him to the philosophical inquiry about why this city exists when it is impossible to separate it out into different parts.

“Thin Cities 2”

The city of Zenobia is distinctive for being placed on stilts of various heights. While no one can remember what caused the founders to give the city this form, all of its inhabitants imagine that Zenobia is a picture of happiness. Polo considers that it is futile to classify cities into happy and unhappy. Rather, it is better to distinguish between those which continue to give rise to desire over the passage of time, and those in which “desires either erase the city or are erased by it” (30).

“Trading Cities 1”

Euphemia is distinctive not because it is a great trading city, but because it is a place where stories and memories are traded on every solstice and equinox. This nourishes travelers on their journeys, as they can exchange their own experiences for those of others.

“Coda to Part 2”

While Polo gained enough linguistic skill to tell his stories to Khan in words rather than with objects and signs as he had previously done, “communication between them was less happy” (32). Although words were useful in listing the information about the cities, when Polo goes on to talk about how life must have been, he finds non-verbal language more useful.

Part 3 Introduction

Kublai Khan notices that the cities Polo describes resemble each other. From now on, Khan will “describe the cities and you will tell me if they exist and are as I have conceived them” (37). Khan’s imagination dismantles a city and reconstructs it, and Polo tells Khan that he has been describing the city that Polo previously told him about. When Khan asks to know the city’s name, Polo declines, saying “it has neither name nor place” (37). He adds that cities resemble dreams in that they are made of desires and fears. Like dreams, cities are also works of the mind. Cities delight travelers because they provide answers to the travelers’ questions.

“Cities and Desire 5”

The city of Zobeide was made in the image of the identical dream of men from various nations. Their dream was of a desirable woman fleeing them in an unknown city. Each of the men lost her but hoped to find the city she was running through. While they never found the original location, they decided to build a city like it, with the streets corresponding to the woman’s flight path. When later generations of men who had a similar dream arrived at the city, they changed the position of streets and stairways to better resemble their idea of the pursued woman’s path, “and so, at the spot where she had vanished, there would remain no avenue of escape” (39). However, new generations of visitors were unable to comprehend what drew others to this ugly city.

“Cities and Signs 4”

In the city of Hypatia, none of the signs the visitor sees correspond to the things he expects to find. Instead of bathing beauties in the blue lagoons, he finds crabs eating the eyes of suicide victims there. Feeling cheated, the traveler seeks the advice of the philosopher, who in turn tells him that “signs form a language, but not the one you think you know” (40). The traveler then realizes that he must free himself from his expectations of signs and images and seek pleasure in unexpected places. Thus, the neighing of horses and cracking of whips lead him towards beautiful women, while the best music is in the cemeteries. When he wishes to leave Hypatia, he knows that he must wait for his ship from the city’s highest pinnacle, yet he fears that it may never arrive.

“Thin Cities 3”

Armilla is a city which has no infrastructure apart from a “forest” of water pipes that end in taps and showers (42). Polo does not know why Armilla is like this, but he says that you can glimpse young bathing women utilizing the water system. He believes that Armilla’s pipes have “remained in the possession of nymphs and naiads,” as these figures of classical mythology are always looking for new ways to play in the water (42).

“Trading Cities 2”

Calvino writes how “a voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities” (44). This is because although the inhabitants fantasize about interacting and even making love with one another, they avert their gaze and do not seek contact. The refusal of contact is what keeps the fantasies alive.

“Cities and Eyes 1”

As Valdrada is built on railed parapets above the water, it is in fact two cities—one above water and one reflected. As a result of these reflections, the image of an act is as important as its reality. However, “the twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical” (45); the mirror increases the value of some acts and debases the value of others.

“Coda to Part 3”

Kublai Khan describes the watery city of his dreams to Polo and then charges him with seeking it out, before returning to Khan and comparing how his dream compares to reality. Polo begs for Khan’s forgiveness, stating that while he is certain to dock at the city Khan describes, he will likely not return as the city “knows only departures, not returns” (50).