Invisible CitiesItalo Calvino's beloved, intricately crafted philosophical novel about an Emperor's travels—a brilliant journey across far-off places and distant memory. “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo—Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories 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. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear. |
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Common terms and phrases
Adelma Aglaura already arrived atlas Beersheba beneath Berenice bridges canals chicken run chrysoprase Cities & Desire Cities & Eyes Cities & Memory Cities & Names Cities & Signs Cities and eyes Cities and names city's Clarice cloud Continuous Cities dead different cities distance domes dream emperor empire Eudoxia Eusapia everything exist face Fedora follow garden gaze hanging Hidden Cities houses imagined inhabitants Irene Italian Folktales Italo Calvino Jaguar Sun journey Khan's Kublai Khan land Lares Laudomia Leandra leave Leonia Leonia's living look marble Marco Polo Marozia Maurilia mountain move never night Nonexistent Knight Olinda palace past Penates Penthesilea perhaps piles pipes Pyrrha recognize remain repeat rise roofs routes rubbish shifting silea space speak square stone streets tell Thin Cities things thought tions towers Trading Cities traveler Valdrada Venice walls wind words Zenobia