All Cities are the Same

I'm still cheating a bit and picking books that I like, but think that is necessary every now and then.

We all have one place that's particularly important to us. It can be a home, a vacation location that we've idealized, or anything in-between, but there is always a source, a place that we compare all others to. A large part of one of Italo Calvino's most famous works, Invisible Cities, deals with just this phenomenon.

Through a series of tales of auspiciously named and designed cities, Marco Polo tells of his travels throughout the world, determined to impress and enlighten the Great Khan. Each of his tales are unique and of unique cities, exploring a different aspect of human beings in society, and yet all of them display traits of Polo's beloved Venice. The depth and range of the human traits explored here are astounding, both delving deep into society towards the nature of Justice and the inevitability of human interactions, to the mere simple nature of humans to absorb the stories of others.

The writing style is highly experimental, composed of short chapters each exploring an idea within the span a few paragraphs, and thinly linked by a series of conversations between the two makeshift protagonists. In the end, it is a story about humans, and an incredibly meditative one at that. As with If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, Calvino has managed to make all of us the main characters, though in an entirely different and much more symbolic fashion.

In the end, its starkness is its greatest weakness. The work is brilliant, but not as hard-hitting as it could have been if some of the talks had received greater elaboration.

SCORE: 88/100