Invisible Cities
First published 2010 · English · 160 pages
- Novels
- Biography and memoir
In this short, poetic novel, the traveller Marco Polo describes imaginary cities to the aged emperor Kublai Khan. Each city is a small prose piece with its own strange logic: cities of memory, desire, signs, trading, or the dead. Between the descriptions, the two men talk about empire, language and what a traveller can truly tell. The book is more a meditation than a plot, and its elegant structure invites readers to think about how we imagine, build and remember the places we live in.
Quotes
Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me." Polo answers: "Without stones there is no arch.
As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. (di quest'onda che rifluisce dai ricordi la città s'imbeve coma una spugna e si dilata). The city, however, does not tell of its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand...