Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino
Mar 10, 2025
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In a captivating discussion, writer and scholar Anna Della Subin, author of 'Accidental Gods', explores Italo Calvino’s 'Invisible Cities'. The conversation dives into the poetic structure, revealing how Marco Polo's fantastical narratives blur reality and imagination. They tackle themes of memory, urban life, and anti-fascist politics, illustrating Calvino's belief in the fantastic as a mode of truth-telling. The intriguing parallels with Kafka’s ideas showcase how storytelling can illuminate hope amid despair.
Calvino's 'Invisible Cities' reimagines urban landscapes through fantastical depictions, revealing universal truths about cities and human experience.
The interplay between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan highlights storytelling's role in understanding and bridging realities through narrative exploration.
Deep dives
Exploring Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities features a distinctive structure, presenting 55 cities categorized by various themes such as desire, memory, and the dead. The narrative is framed by the conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, reminiscent of storytelling traditions like Scheherazade's. Within this framework, each city represents universal truths about urban life, effectively capturing the essence of all places. Polo's assertion that every city is an iteration of his home, Venice, underscores the personal lens through which he narrates his travels.
The Nature of Reality in Calvino's Work
Calvino's writing encourages readers to engage with the illusory nature of these cities, blurring the lines between reality and imagination. By employing intimate second-person narration, he involves readers directly in the narrative, making them feel as if they are experiencing the cities themselves. Each city is depicted with such clarity that it prompts reflection on whether they have been encountered before, creating a sense of existential wonder. This quality fosters a playful exploration of the fantastical while maintaining a deep connection to the real world.
Marco Polo's Legacy and Influence
Marco Polo's travels and encounters, particularly with Kublai Khan, serve as a backdrop that amplifies the themes of storytelling and memory throughout Invisible Cities. Polo's desire to captivate the Khan through his tales reflects a profound understanding of the importance of narrative in bridging gaps and illuminating dark realities. His interactions highlight a blend of rigorous detailing of his journeys with the fantastical elements that Calvino weaves into the narrative. The influence of Polo's life and experiences resonates within Calvino's writing, emphasizing the timeless connection between exploration, imagination, and the human experience.
Italo Calvino’s novella Invisible Cities is a hypnagogic reimagining of Marco Polo’s time in the court of Kublai Khan. Polo describes 55 impossible places – cities made of plumbing, free-floating, overwhelmed by rubbish, buried underground – that reveal something true about every city. Marina and Anna Della read Invisible Cities alongside the Travels of Marco Polo, and explore how both blur the lines between reality and fantasy, storyteller and audience. They discuss the connections between Calvino’s love of fairytales and his anti-fascist politics, and why he saw the fantastic as a mode of truth-telling.
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Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.
Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014.