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Thursday, June 2, 2011

INVISIBLE CITIES X -- Cities and Signs: ZIRMA

"Zirma," courtesy
cittainvisibili.com
Zirma: I don't know.  There's nothing on it as a name.  I can find a couple sources that claim it as a city in Turkey, but Google Earth doesn't seem to know anything about; it suggest Szirma, Hungary.  Did Calvino make it up?
  1. According to the last line, a thing only exists once it exists in the mind.  I guess that might be true, but it smacks of the whole "If a tree falls in the forest" thing.  Speaking of the last line, consistently it is the final words of a city's description that brings all the pieces together.
  2. Couldn't the description of Zirma be used to describe anything, or at least any place?  I have the same problem with certain songs--can't ever get them out of my head without replacing them with something else.
  3. How does Zirma work with or against Tamara, the other signs city?
This is such a different book from the others we've read.  I spend considerably more time researching and writing than reading.  It's refreshing!

3 comments:

  1. 1. I think that it's referring to the way that memory creates patterns, cause and effect, etc., so that people can make sense of what they're seeing--even if that sense is inaccurate/perceived differently by the memories of different people.
    2. Yeah, I think so.
    3. Tamara seems to describe collective memory, while this one is more individualistic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1. I've always been interested in the subjectivity of memory. No one's memory is accurate.
    3. Yeah, the relationship between the two seems to speak more than either one of them on their own.

    I really enjoy reading your perspectives on these, because they're often different than mine. One of the best traits of effective poetry.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, the same here. Several of your points made a ton of sense when I read them, but I wouldn't have thought of them on my own.

    ReplyDelete

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