there a scene in dead poets society where robin williams stands on a desk and says he’s up there to look at the room different ,well calvino does that in invisinble cities .the main preface of the story is that marco polo is describing to kublai khan all the cities that he has visited on his travels .so as the book unfolds you get brief two to three page descriptions of each city whether real or imagined you never know , interspeed between this are conversations between polo and khan .the descriptions of the cities are clever framing devices for calvino to play with language and type of stories .the main feeling i got from this is to always look at your surroundings you never know what your missing no matter how small
invisible cities by italo calvino
Hadn’t heard of the book or author, but it sounds fascinating. And unusual. I like unusual. Forgive my curiousity, but is this a book you stumbled upon, had recommended, or does everyone (except me, obviously) know of it?
Wow! I attended an amazing writing workshop in June at a conference on the Berlin Wall anniversary. It focused on writing about cities now and in the past, and after we’d been through our own exercises, we were given a piece of Calvino to read from this book. Hugely thought-provoking.
Excellent book and author! The interesting thing is that as a reader you get the impression that Marco Polo is always describing the same city – his home town Venice.