An Intricate Structure

The way Calvino wrote Invisible Cities makes it an interesting but complex book to read. Even though I have tried to understand it, in the following chapters I would like to get to know where all these allegories or metaphors are going to and what they actually mean all together. The first aspect that came to my mind was that its chapter introductions and conclusions (the interludes), which are a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, are describing the book itself, making it metaliterary, like Mr Tangen explained in class. Marco Polo represents the author and Kublai Khan represents the readers, showing how the author tells stories to the readers, and describing the way these relate an how the author communicates using the book. It is interesting to try to decipher what the metaliterature parts of the book mean, but I hope that when reading the rest of the book my questions about what it means are answered.

Another interesting aspect of the book is the way its chapters are divided. I decided to read the book in the natural order of the pages, rather than through the types of sections. In the way I have read it, it seems that each chapter has an introduction and a conclusion that relate to the chapters in between. These sections, which have dialogues between the two characters, have helped me as a reader since they make sense out of descriptions of cities. I feel like the interludes have helped me understand that in the first section Kublai Khan feels some sort of deterioration and that Marco Polo’s cities are meant to be interpreted, or that they are not just accounts of his expeditions. I hope that when continuing to read the book I can understand better the purpose for its structure.