I Read Books: Invisible Cities

 

Invisible Cities

On the back of my copy of this book it quotes Gore Vidal. “Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant.” Well then.

Marco Polo describes cities of the Empire to Kublai Khan. To begin with they do not share a language so his descriptions involve miming, cries, laughs, hoots and items from his pack. Later he learns the local language and so can speak. Later still Kublai Khan understands so well that he can comprehend the descriptions without words.

The cities themselves are extraordinary, often with explicit themes. This leads to variations on the theme, opposites, alternatives, mysteries, confusion; inexplicable, impossible cities. Sometimes one might be able to construct a table of variations and combinations yet there is always something more, and something missing.

Read This: A mannered book that escapes it’s structure in unexpected ways
Don’t Read This: A book that muses about the existence of possible cities with no particular conclusion is not for you