Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

First published:Le citta invisibili, 1972 (English translation, 1974)

Type of work: Magical realism

Time of work: From the thirteenth through the twentieth centuries

Locale: The garden of Kublai Khan’s palace; a series of cities perhaps real, perhaps imaginary, in his empire

Principal Characters:

• Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler, now resident in the court of Kublai Khan
• Kublai Khan, the Tartar emperor

The Novel

Invisible Cities consists of a series of dialogues between Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveler, and Kublai Khan, the legendary conqueror. The two sit in Kublai Khan’s garden, and Marco Polo recounts, or perhaps invents, descriptions of a multitude of fabulous cities. Since these cities are never actually seen, but only described, they are invisible to the emperor; since they might not even exist, they may be literally unknown to everyone but the reader, who is entranced by the shimmering, haunting evocations of Marco Polo/Italo Calvino.

There is no action in the novel, merely conversation, but the reader is carried along by the descriptions of the cities, and by their careful relationship in an intricate, philosophically oriented pattern. Invisible Cities is a carefully crafted, jewel-like work which moves on at least three different levels: the verbal pictures of the cities, the philosophical interpretations, and the artistic reflections.

The cities are divided into eleven categories. There are connections between cities and memory, desire, signs, eyes, names, the dead, and the sky. There are also kinds or types of cities: thin cities, trading cities, continuous cities, and hidden cities. Marco’s description of each place corresponds meticulously to its inherent nature.

The city of Melania, for example, is among the “cities of the dead,” and its inhabitants are not living human beings but unknowing representatives of the stock types found in literature: the hypocrite, the sponger, the king’s son fallen to low estate and awaiting recognition. All the residents of the city play roles, and while the roles gradually shift and might multiply, they remain static and stereotypical, and thus, dead. “Melania’s population renews itself: the participants in the dialogues die one by one and meanwhile those who will take their places are born, some in one role, some in another.”

Theodora, on the other hand, is among the hidden cities, and what was long concealed in its memories and libraries is unwittingly revealed by the actions of its citizens. Determined to rid their homes of vermin, they painstakingly eradicate all pests—rats, fleas, spiders. No sooner is this accomplished, however, than “the other fauna” come back to light: “Sphinxes, griffons, chimeras, dragons, hircocervi, harpies, hydras, unicorns, basilisks were resuming possession of their city.”

The Characters

At first, it would seem that Kublai Khan and Marco Polo are the only characters in Calvino’s novel; other persons, when mentioned at all, are described only briefly, and purely as stock figures. In one sense, Calvino has deliberately reduced his work’s personnel to a bare minimum, yet, between them, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo may be seen to represent the entire population of the Khan’s empire. Kublai Khan is master of much of the world; Marco Polo is a well-traveled voyager in it. Together they encompass, at least through experience and observation, most of the world’s events and persons. In this respect, Calvino’s message and techniques reflect the old duality of man and universe as images of one another: The microcosm of the individual captures and repeats the macrocosm of the great world. Society contains nothing not present in the individual, and this is especially true of cities, in which the diversity of the multitude is only the complexity of the individual written large.

At times, Calvino hints, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo seem to be the only characters in the entire world of Invisible Cities, and all the fabled townscapes merely images in their minds. Indeed, they themselves may be self-created fictions or artifices of illusion:

Perhaps this dialogue of ours is taking place between two beggars nicknamed Kublai Khan and Marco Polo; as they sift through a rubbish heap, piling up rusted flotsam, scraps of cloth, wastepaper, while drunk on the few sips of bad wine, they see all the treasure of the East shine around them.

Because of the nature of Invisible Cities, it does not matter if Marco Polo and Kublai Khan are speaking of real or imaginary cities, with actual or ghostly inhabitants, in an empire that may or may not exist. In a novel concerned with artifice and illusion, it is enough that the voice speaks and the mind believes.

That speaking voice brings to life the most varied and interesting of the novel’s characters, the cities themselves. Whether they are thin cities or trading cities, whether they are cities connected with memory, or signs, or the sky, or the dead, all of them are unique and memorable. Calvino carefully suits the odd, yet believable, aspects of each city to a philosophical concept, which adds to the layered texture of the work. At the same time, however, each place has the particular feel, sight, and even odor of a real city, which makes them seem to exist, no matter how exotic or implausible they are. All of these cities are unique yet odd, and all are in some particular way enchanting. It is certainly no accident that Calvino has given each of them a woman’s name.

Critical Context

Calvino’s novels typically concern themselves with the complex interplay of art and reality, life and artifice. Generally, his writings move toward a more open and openly delighted display of technique and literary skill, and in several of his later works he demonstrates his ability to hold the reader’s attention while ignoring or deliberately subverting the traditional expectations of plot and character development.

Invisible Cities is just such a work, and fits well into other Calvino novels such as Il castello dei destini incrociati (1969; revised 1973; The Castle of Crossed Destinies, 1977) and Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (1979; If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, 1981). In these later works, Calvino deliberately sets himself what would seem to be unpromising and even annoying conditions for his writing. The underlying schemes are elaborate, highly artificial, and seemingly inflexible. The Castle of Crossed Destinies bases its plot on two decks of tarot cards; If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is a series of ten novels which begin, advance to an exciting, critical point, and then abruptly end; Invisible Cities is the record of a dialogue that may never have taken place about towns which never existed.

Still, in all these works Calvino demonstrates that he is a master, even a wizard, with language and thought, equally adept at creating a fantastic city and revealing its philosophical nuances. On the surface, Invisible Cities seems a glittering bauble of a book, all fantasy and show. Underneath, however, the startling inventions and sly humor reveal a thoughtful meditation on life, art, language, and humanity—and their tangled relationships. On one level, the book delights the seeker of novelty and entertainment; on another, it rewards the serious, but not solemn, thinker.

Invisible Cities is a key work in Calvino’s later career, and one of his most inventive and enjoyable books. If art is a mirror held up to nature, as some would have it, then Invisible Cities is a mirror held up to itself, creating a bright and dazzling interplay of lights and reflections. For the perceptive and sympathetic reader, the book is its own best critical commentary.

Bibliography

Andrews, Richard. “Italo Calvino,” in Writers and Society in Contemporary Italy: A Collection of Essays, 1984. Edited by Michael Caesar and Peter Hainsworth.

Calvino, Italo. The Uses of Literature, 1986.

Carter, Albert Howard. Italo Calvino: Metamorphoses of Fantasy, 1987.

Olken, I.T. With Pleated Eye and Garnet Wing: Symmetries of Italo Calvino, 1984.