May 31, 2021
Review of Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
So, what should a review of Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino be like? One thing’s for certain: It can’t be like any other review, because the novel (if one may still call it that) is like no other, either.
If that way of describing it sounds familiar, you’ve likely read my review of Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima. In that review, too, I had real trouble placing the work in a certain framework. Invisible Cities defies characterization. It’s what art should really be like: Focusing on affect, foregoing plot.
With these in mind, it will likely be no surprise to hear that I loved Calvino’s book. But reviews aren’t about what we like, but about why we like them. And so, in this review of Invisible Cities my goal – as with everything else I review – is ultimately to show you what the book feels like, rather than what it is.
Review of Invisible Cities: Genre, Plot, Narrative
Invisible Cities has no genre. We could call it experimental fiction, surrealist, postmodern, it doesn’t matter. Ridiculously, Amazon lumps it with such categories as “Classic Action & Adventure”, “Biographical Historical Fiction”, and even “Historical Italian Fiction”, which are only some of the categories Invisible Cities amusingly deconstructs.
The genre doesn’t matter. The plot doesn’t matter either, and I’m delighted I need just one sentence to describe what the book is about: Marco Polo and Kublai Khan discuss the various cities the former has visited.
That’s it. And yet, not.
More than a Sum of Its Parts
You see, as I often say, literature is more than a sum of its parts, and no other book I’ve read recently portrays this more skillfully than Calvino’s novel.
In narrative terms, the novel is about imagination and creativity, reality and identity (though in a rather general, abstract way), and – particularly – the way we create assumptions.
And so, with this in mind, let’s talk about characters – so that I can dispel one such assumption.
Review of Invisible Cities: Characters
Neither Marco Polo nor Kublai Khan are the main characters of the novel. No, there are no other characters, not really. In a way, the true characters of Invisible Cities are the cities themselves. Each one with a distinct personality (though sharing several commonalities), each one carrying a female name, each one constructed in a surrealist way that defies time and space.
The book is replete with delightful anachronisms – imagine Marco Polo talking to Kublai Khan about airports and you’ve just scratched the surface – and other devices that deconstruct the traditional idea of travel narratives.
You see, the real characters of Invisible Cities are neither Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, nor the cities. The actual characters of the book are its readers, invited to create and journey through their own creations, occurring simultaneously with (and as a result of) their reading.
Review of Invisible Cities: General Impression
Let me be honest: I really don’t know how to properly review this book. A review is supposed to be an objective process – to the degree is possible – whereas this book is predicated on an exclusively subjective act of reading. In other words, most books have at least some objective facet, usually plot-based: “The first pig built a house made of straw”.
There is no objectivity in Invisible Cities. The very concept of objectivity is what Calvino essentially ridicules – at least the way I interpret it. And that’s the whole point. More than any other book I’ve read recently, Invisible Cities is about bringing your own meaning and creating a world (whether metaphorical, literal, or literary).
For these reasons alone, Invisible Cities is worth at least a look.
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Two things moved me deeply in Invisible Cities: the ubiquitous use of the textual type description and, related to that, how the description of each city can be read as a theory of writing fiction, as a short recipe, an abbreviated methodology.