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Invisible Cities

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Invisible Cities Cover

ISBN13: 9780156453806
ISBN10: 0156453800
All Product Details

 

Staff Pick

In Invisible Cities, Marco Polo and Kublai Khan tell stories of the cities they've seen, imagined, dreamt, and remembered. The result is a diaphanous fantasy alternating between mirage and memory, like bridges slipping through river fog, or minarets wavering in desert heat. In the end, after a traveler's tour of cities possible and impossible, the two storytellers find themselves on common ground.

Invisible Cities is a great introduction to Calvino — short, but wide in scope; intelligent, yet accessible; dazzling, yet profound. I love this book, but I can't really explain why. It defies easy categorization or synopsis. Invisible Cities exists for no other reason than Calvino wrote it. It exists, like sunlight, without question. And like sunlight, it illuminates something inexpressible and mysterious. It provokes the same feelings I have when I return home after traveling outside the country — subtle shifts in perception and value that texture my home city with new light, adding deeper layers of understanding and meaning to my quotidian life.

I want to live in the cities Calvino describes, and it turns out that I already do — I just don't always see the remarkable, or hold the perspective necessary to observe beauty in the commonplace. Ask me to describe the city I live in, and I will describe my own life. Invisible Cities is kind of like that.
Recommended by Jason W., Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo — Tartar emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts the emperor with tales of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. Soon it becomes clear that each of these fantastic places is really the same place.

Review:

"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." Gore Vidal, The New York Review of Books
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About the Author

Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in San Remo, Itlay.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
Bronte, September 2, 2011 (view all comments by Bronte)
A timeless novella in a series of prose poems, translated from the original Italian, in which explorer Marco Polo talks with Kublai Khan and described for him 55 imaginary cities he's seen on his travels. Each chapter in this slim book is a short, beautiful burst of language.
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frederarch, January 3, 2011 (view all comments by frederarch)
Every architect and planner should read this book.
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mcoulterfineart, January 16, 2010 (view all comments by mcoulterfineart)
This book is a true wonder.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780156453806
Author:
Calvino, Italo
Publisher:
Mariner Books
Translator:
Weaver, William
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Polo, Marco
Subject:
Kublai Khan
Subject:
Biographical fiction
Subject:
Explorers -- Italy -- Fiction.
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Polo, Marco - Fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
c197
Edition Number:
1st Harvest/HBJ ed.
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Series:
Harvest/HBJ Book
Publication Date:
19780531
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
176
Dimensions:
8 x 5.31 in 0.38 lb
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Related Subjects


Featured Titles » Literature
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

Invisible Cities New Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$14.00 In Stock
Product details 176 pages Harvest/HBJ Book - English 9780156453806 Reviews:
"Staff Pick" by ,

In Invisible Cities, Marco Polo and Kublai Khan tell stories of the cities they've seen, imagined, dreamt, and remembered. The result is a diaphanous fantasy alternating between mirage and memory, like bridges slipping through river fog, or minarets wavering in desert heat. In the end, after a traveler's tour of cities possible and impossible, the two storytellers find themselves on common ground.

Invisible Cities is a great introduction to Calvino — short, but wide in scope; intelligent, yet accessible; dazzling, yet profound. I love this book, but I can't really explain why. It defies easy categorization or synopsis. Invisible Cities exists for no other reason than Calvino wrote it. It exists, like sunlight, without question. And like sunlight, it illuminates something inexpressible and mysterious. It provokes the same feelings I have when I return home after traveling outside the country — subtle shifts in perception and value that texture my home city with new light, adding deeper layers of understanding and meaning to my quotidian life.

I want to live in the cities Calvino describes, and it turns out that I already do — I just don't always see the remarkable, or hold the perspective necessary to observe beauty in the commonplace. Ask me to describe the city I live in, and I will describe my own life. Invisible Cities is kind of like that.

by Jason W.
"Review" by , "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."
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