Invisible Cities
In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo--Tartar emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts the emperor with tales of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. Soon it becomes clear that each of these fantastic places is really the same place.
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Community Reviews
This very short novel is completely unique in that it is collection of stories about cities that are really ideas and feelings. The stories are tied together by an imagined conversation between Marco Polo, who is reporting on the cities, and Kublai Khan who is unable to venture out and explore himself.
It's about memory, so it's interesting to reread it and see what I do and don't remember about the cities. The first time I read it was in 2010 while my dad was dying, and the city that stuck out was the one where ships sailed out and none returned. But in my reread I discovered this wasn't one of Marco Polo's cities but the Kublai Khan's dream, to which Marco Polo replies, "Forgive me, my lord, there is no doubt that sooner or later I shall set sail from that dock," says Marco, "but I shall not come back to tell you about it. The city exists and it has a simple secret: it knows only departures, not returns."
It's about memory, so it's interesting to reread it and see what I do and don't remember about the cities. The first time I read it was in 2010 while my dad was dying, and the city that stuck out was the one where ships sailed out and none returned. But in my reread I discovered this wasn't one of Marco Polo's cities but the Kublai Khan's dream, to which Marco Polo replies, "Forgive me, my lord, there is no doubt that sooner or later I shall set sail from that dock," says Marco, "but I shall not come back to tell you about it. The city exists and it has a simple secret: it knows only departures, not returns."
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