INVISIBLE CITIES XL -- Cities & the Dead: MELANIA

This is the first city characterized as "Cities and the Dead."  What do you make of it's placement?

I really don't have a lot to say about this one.  I could probably dig into it and find something more than what I've got, but I'm not going to do it this time.  It's not that it's too pretty (it's not, really), or that there's too much there to get into (maybe there is, but I don't think so).  I don't know.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  I'll limit it, instead, to just a simple application fitting it--squeezing it, it seems--into the spider theme we've had going this chapter:

If Melania might fit into the spider theme, it can only be that all these citizens who die and are replaced or renewed or replayed are the spiders.  While I'm not convinced this is what Calvino had in mind at all, it makes for an interesting shift from beginning of the chapter to end: that we started with the spider as the God--the emperor--and now end with the spiders as the citizens.  Thoughts?

The name, Melania, by the way, is Greek for black or dark.  Go figure.

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXIX -- Cities & Names: LEANDRA

Only because I've referenced him recently, 
here's Arthur Rackham's Puck, from
A Midsummer Night's Dream.

As is generally the case, I started with the name of the city: Leandra, and went to behindthename.com, my old standby.  This is what I found (not what I expected, considered the arachnoid theme of chapter 5 and that Leandra, the city, seems to match): 

From the Greek Λεανδρος (Leandros) which means "lion of a man" from Greek λεων (leon) "lion" and ανδρος (andros) "of a man". In Greek legend Leander was the lover of Hero. Every night he swam across the Hellespont to meet her, but on one occasion he was drowned when a storm arose. When Hero saw his dead body she threw herself into the waters and perished. 

Cool little story, huh?  But there are two more names as well, the species of the two gods that rule here:

• Lares (I love this one -- all from Wikipedia, and perfectly appropriate to Polo's description (or Kublai's) of Leandra):  "Lares are sometimes categorised as household gods but some had much broader domains. Roadways, seaways, agriculture, livestock, towns, cities, the state and its military were all under the protection of their particular Lar or Lares."  (See the rest of it here.)
• Penates (which seems to me a variation of the lares):  Penates "were among the dii familiares, or household deities, invoked most often in domestic rituals. When the family had a meal, they threw a bit into the fire on the hearth for the Penates.^[1]They were thus associated with Vesta, the Lares, and the Genius of the paterfamilias in the "little universe" of the domus."  (See the rest here.)

(The opposite of a puck, maybe, despite the cross-cultural leap such a connection would require?)

Now, all that said, what do you make of the fitting of this chapter and the "gods" into the spider theme?  

(Living in a particularly old house as I do, which is infested with spiders in the summer and ladybugs in the winter, the connection seems obvious and, yeah, nerdy, gleeful.

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXVIII -- Cities & Eyes: BAUCIS

Jupiter and Mercury in the house of Philemon and Baucis

We've spent the last two cities talking about spiderwebs and how the metaphor may or may not apply to the Khan's far-reaching, and perhaps tenuously maintained, empire.  It took me a few minutes (and certainly well after the first read nearly ten months ago now) to see what's going on in Baucis.  More than just the subject of the imagery is the scale of it all.  Before we get to punch line, then, let's look at the city's description in reverse:

The 3 hypotheses:

• "that they hate the earth";
• "that they respect it so much they avoid all contact"; and
• "that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward they never tire of examining it...."

The description:

• A number of great stilts like flamingos' legs supporting the city, which, on a sunny day, casts and angular shadow;
• and perhaps this one is stretching it, but check out how long it takes to get to the city: not seven days does it take, but only after seven days do you arrive there, and what, of course, comes after seven?  And then immediately the mention and description of the long slender stilts reaching up into the heavens?

A spider, right?  And not just any spider, but a spider so lofty as to dwell in the heavens, where only the gods and, perhaps, at least one of the greatest of emperors reside, right?

Interesting that the citizens of the city never descend, as they have everything they need with them, yet they leave ladders out for those who may desire an ascent a means of access.  

As far as the name is concerned, Baucis, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXVII -- Trading Cities: ERSILIA

Ersilia and Romulus; from here

In Ersilia we have another web, though there's nothing necessarily spidery about it, as was the case in Octavia.  I don't know if Calvino meant it (I was more sure that he didn't mean a connection to Shelob, of course), but this chapter reminds me of something I read about in Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.  In the book, the protagonist has a scuffle with the "Black Hats" -- a sect of a particularly strict observers of Judaism.  Now, I'm the first to admit that I know practically nothing about Judaism.  Really pretty much only what I've gotten from Chabon's books and a few read-throughs of the Old Testament.  It's been long enough since my last read of The YPU that I don't remember the details, but somewhere along the line, the protagonist has to speak to the guy who manages all the string.  Yeah.  Anyway, this guy is a master of all the boundaries put upon strict observers of Jewish law and marks them all on hundreds of maps and uses dozens of types and countless lengths of string to run throughout the town and demarcate the boundaries (how many steps one may take on the Sabbath, for example) for observers.  Anyway, the webs in Ersilia remind me of this, and I'm very interested in what you might make of it.

A few other things I find interesting, and about which I invite your thoughts:

• that the strings remain when the inhabitants leave;
• use of the word "refugee" and how it connects not only to the story of Ersilia itself, but also to the meta-story of the empire;
• that the bones don't remain, victims of the rolling wind, and in the same sentence of the mention, finally, of a spider (as if the spider ate the bodies whose bones are gone);
• lastly, Ersilia was the wife of Romulus -- you know, of Remus and Romulus, founders of Rome, another empire and also stretched particularly thin.

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXVI -- Thin Cities: OCTAVIA

from here

It's been months since the last IC entry.  An unexpected impetus, however, struck, and I'm back.  No need to dwell on it; let's just jump back into it.

This chapter offers an obvious knee-jerk reminder--certainly and thankfully ridiculous--of a Spiderman villain, and perhaps less so, one from The Lord of the Rings.  Maybe if I hadn't taken a four-month hiatus, I wouldn't have had to reread the exposition at the head of chapter 5 to get what's going on.  We examined a little bit over the previous four chapters the subtle shifting--or, at least, the unlabeled shifting--of narrators.  I'm not sure who's dream is Octavia, or, for that matter, that of the next two chapters (though I expect the entire chapter, whoever's dream it is, is the same), but clearly it's commentary on the unchecked expansion of the empire.

• Assuming that Octavia is analogous to all of the Kublai's expansive territories, what do you make of the closing sentence?

by John Howe; from here

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXV -- Daydream and the Incidental Comics

I've been a follower of Grant Snider's Incidental Comics for some time now (about as long as I've been blogging, really), throughout which time his refreshingly ebullient style and intelligent design have made many a morning easier.  Today he posted the following cartoon, which he claims was inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.  With Grant's permission, I share the cartoon and, with any luck, will find my own inspiration, renewed, to finally finish The Wall's treatment of Invisible Cities.

Daydream

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXIV -- Chapter 5, ..... 1

(I know it's self-indulgence, but I can't help but think of T.E. Hulme's "Above the Dock," reading the Khan's description of the moon's progression in his dream.)

1. If a person is, or may be[come], master of his/her domain, and if Kublai Khan's entire empire exists merely--or maybe just possibly--as words and dreams, mightn't any person gain leadership of grand empire?
2. What of the notion that the Khan's empire is so huge and that it's impossible for him to ever visit all the cities?  Is this and Polo's descriptions anything like the famed tree that falls in a forest with no one to hear?
3. Regarding the structure of the book, do the opening expositions to each chapter--the situation the Khan finds himself in--dictate the meme of Polo's coming descriptions?  (And any thoughts at all on how much time passes during or between each chapter?)

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXIII -- Chapter 4, ..... 2

Have we arrived at 

the process Calvino employed 

to "create" each of his cities?

*

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXII -- Cities and Names: AGLAURA

1. Aside from providing a potential pair of names for Calvino's book, what inspiration is there for the account of this particular city in the plot description, or anything else in the description, of the play Aglaura, as put up by Wikipedia?
2. As the others in chapter four, is Aglaura a double city, or a city accompanied immediately by its reflection?
3. Polo's cursory description of the city identifies it as remarkable only by its drabness--by its unremarkableness, yet he claims the periodic and spontaneous appearances of things "unmistakable, rare, perhaps magnificent."  In the context of any other city, would these spontaneities be less remarkable?

INVISIBLE CITIES XXXI -- Cities and Eyes: ZEMRUDE

1. Another element of duality in Zemrude, this one becoming less metaphysical or fantastic, as it is something one would experience in any city or walking anywhere.
2. There is also another element of water, as it is the drainpipes rather than anything else, that rail our attention as it drops.
3. What is Calvino's commentary made through Zemrude?

from here

INVISIBLE CITIES [30] -- Trading Cities: EUTROPIA

1. So, chapter 4 motif?
2. Back to Calvino's imagination: hasn't he proved himself?  Isn't it good enough?  Is it overkill to keep going with more and more "invisible" cities?  Can you identify--or at least feel--a progression?
3. What of the absurd impracticalities (and thus indulging the impossibilities) of such a place?  Maybe the fact that no one spends more than a year or two at any one job has something to do with the overall level financial playing field.  Of course, that begs the question: if they're happy anyway, do they need the money or influence or power that comes by and/or causes class stratification?
4. Define the irony of the last two sentences: "Alone, among all the cities of the empire, Eutropia, remains always the same.  Mercury, god of the fickle, to whom the city is sacred, worked this ambiguous miracle."

INVISIBLE CITIES XXIX -- Thin Cities: SOPHRONIA

1. "Sophronia" means "self-controlled" or "sensible."  If the half-city that bears permanently the name, Sophronia, is the carnival, then what is Polo (I daren't say Calvino here) getting at?
2. The two preceding cities, both Olivia and, if you're willing to stretch a little, the unnamed city of departures, both hold as part of themselves a reflection, double, or twin--a repetition of itself (herself?).  Is this the motif?
3. What do you think of Calvino's imagination?
4. Is the banking, concrete half a reflection of or just a balance of mass to the permanent half?

from here

INVISIBLE CITIES XXVIII -- Cities and Signs: OLIVIA

London

OLIVIA: It makes sense that Olivia, the city, is a wealthy city, as olives are historically a symbol, not mention evidence, of wealth.

The opening sentence continues to emphasize the deconstrivist motif of the entire book (and, again, such an Umberto-Eco, at least as far as this blog is concerned, kind of motif it is), that words [or signs] and the things they represent are not necessarily the same thing--they occupy different spaces--though, as Polo tells the emperor, there is a connection between the two.

1. Is there a theme or plot-device (as it were) tying together each of the chapters?  If so, what's going on in chapter 4?
2. Does Olivia exist?
3. "If there really were an Olivia of mullioned windows and peacocks, ... it would be a wretched, black, fly-ridden hole....": why?  The literalist in me wants to say that, well, there must be a natural hierarchy supporting any wealthy city, that below the luscious green apex with its mansions and gold filigree and white peacocks, must be churning away a massive mechanism of industry with all its accompanying soot and slag.  I don't know if this is what Calvino's getting at.  Is he being less literal, more figurative?
4. And I just can't wrap my brain around the last sentence.  The abstraction is too much for me.  What do you make of it?

INVISIBLE CITIES XXVII -- Chapter 4, ..... 1

Of Distant Lights and Crystalline Structures

1. "Your cities do not exist.  Perhaps they have never existed.  It is sure they will never exist again."  Whether they existed before or will exist later, when is it that Marco Polo's stories do indeed exist?
2. Discuss Marco Polo's salesmanship.

INVISIBLE CITIES XXVI -- Chapter 3, ..... 2

1. The ending italicized section of Chapter 3 is less exposition than it is a sharing of a city by the Khan rather than by Marco Polo.  Considering what we read in the opening italicized section, is there any difference between the book's cities by the one who experienced them or how (in this case, by a dream) they were experienced?
2. This issue of relative impartiality (if that even makes sense) seems reflected (sorry) by the concept of the city of Valdrada.  Thoughts?
3. The premise here of a city of departures, to me, comes over a little less gracefully than all the other cities, but I expect it's less for weak writing than it is for a characteristic ascribed to Marco Polo by Calvino.  What sort of person is the explorer?
4. The idea of a city that "knows only departures" is interesting, regardless of Polo's know-it-all identification.  Do such cities exist in reality or elsewhere in literature?

INVISIBLE CITIES XXV -- Cities and Eyes: VALDRADA

1. The fundamental idea behind Valdrada is fascinating to me: how would life be different if your actions were always before you, and how is this question different from the similar question (for those who are religious), "How would life be different if God weren't always watching?"  As far as I'm concerned, actions always before self and peers is very different from actions always before God.  Thoughts?
2. How do the two halves of Valdrada differ; why is it not a parallel city?
3. Can you think of examples when the reflection will increase the value of an action and examples of when it will diminish because of the reflection?

one more Escher; why not?

INVISIBLE CITIES XXIV -- Trading Cities: CHLOE

1. There's a language issue present in Chloe, very similar to that of Hypatia, inasmuch as words and expectations have practically nothing to do with signs or the reality containing them.  Thoughts?
2. Is Chloe a virtual world?  Where does Chloe exist, especially concerning the all-cities-are-one?  Heck, even this: is Chloe science fiction?
3. If this is a city of commerce, a "trading city," what is the merchandise?  Where is everybody going when they pass each other on the street and "all combinations are used up" in their minds?
4. Regardless of the lack of physical contact, is this indeed a chaste city, let alone "the most chaste of cities"?

from here

INVISIBLE CITIES XXIII -- Thin Cities: ARMILLA

1. There is a semi-recurring theme of water, fountains, pipes, wells and windlasses, and the like.  Thoughts?
2. "Lavabo" is a great word, isn't it?
3. If all the cities are just a million impressions or vantages of the same city, what is the point from which Armilla is being viewed?
4. Contrast Armilla to Hypatia regarding Polo's proximity to them.  For example, Armilla: "In the morning you hear them singing" connotes, to me anyway, distance, as opposed to Polo's extended residency in Hypatia.
5. Is there a difference, fundamentally (and perhaps perspective is a required component to this answer), between a city destroyed and a city unfinished?

INVISIBLE CITIES XXII -- Cities and Signs: HYPATIA

"I realized I had to free myself from the images which in the past had announced to me the things I sought: only then would I succeed in understanding the language of Hypatia."  So what, then, is the language of Hypatia--or better, how is it nothing like our language in its regard to signs (signs being the referents of our words) --or best, what is the relationship between signs and the mind's expectations?  So then, if "there is no language without deceit," how does one communicate, and is the language of Hypatia actually any different from our languages anyway?

The real question here (because the first is just another of the countless un-answerables really) is what makes this place so attractive or comfortable that Polo apparently doesn't want to leave--at least not any time soon?

INVISIBLE CITIES XXI -- Cities and Desire: ZOBEIDE

(Zobeide -- perhaps from the Arabic "Zubaida," a female name for "elite" or "prime")

1. Smacks a bit of Christopher Nolan's Inception, doesn't it--this dream sharing?
2. What is Calvino getting at when he describes the city as having forgotten the dream of its ... err ... inception?
3. The later men who had shared the dream of the running woman: did they have the dream and seek out the city, or did they stumble upon the city coincidentally?
4. Why is the city so ugly?

M.C. Escher -- again