Invisible Cities?

     Italo Calvino an italian journalist, short story and novel writer created the book Invisible Cities in 1972. It's a book about the expeditions of Marco Polo, filled with a complete descriptions of the different cities he explored, or that's what I think the book will be filled with. Evading the descriptive cliché will be the format of this book, to make it unique and unforgettable. 

 
    Cliché is defined as an expression that has been overused by writers, readers, directors or just people in general. Due to the overuse, the word starts to loose its original meaning.
Invisible Cities' preface describes a little of how 

Kublai Khan, the Khagan of the Mongol Empire, will connect in the story with Marco Polo, the European merchant that economically created a bond with Central Asia and China. 

The cities description is shorter than a page, the words in each city are so accurate that with a few sentences the description is almost perfect and understandable yet they are surreal cities. The author gives us the opportunity to come up with a visual idea of each city and in the end just notice a pattern that relates each one of them.

Why make a book about cities? Reading the book personally gives me the sensation of a poem with a strange format, the description gives the words and exquisite and almost harmonic touch. Is Italo trying to describe the perfect place to live in? The good and bad is describe, yet essential things human need to maintain a good life are mention a lot, like spirituality, wilderness or nature. Trying to bring back the way we humans used to live before without technology.


   Each section of each chapter is written as a school text book, the descriptions, the format or the seriousness. Because the author is writing in first person, as if they where his own experiences, the text seems full of facts of the city but at the same time it has a touch of opinion and personal experience. 


  This first chapter of the book was a new type of reading for me, I though Prep Ap english books would be complicated and almost impossible to understand hens I was scared of reading a book about cities by an italian author. Yet I have grown a taste towards the book. 


  Because it's based around descriptions and adjective, I don't understand many words but I know it will be a way to expand my vocabulary ;).