Connections Start to Form

Calvino already told us that his cities are related, maybe even implied the existence of only one city. “Kublai Khan had noticed that Marco Polo’s cities resembled one another, as if the passage from one another involved not a journey but a change of elements.” (pg.43) As I see it, this passage says the following: Calvino knows that the author has started to see certain connections between the cities. He did not need to travel through new ideas and inspiration for each city. Each of them is the same idea with different elements. These elements could be perspective. Maybe, the cities are meant to take live according to our interpretations. “But what enhanced for Kublai every event or piece of news reported by his inarticulate informer was the space that remained around it, a void not filled with words. The descriptions of cities Marco Polo visited had this virtue: you could wander through them in thought, become lost, stop and enjoy the cool air, or run off.” (pg.38)

I decided that I was going to look for things that connected cities with each other. I noticed small connections, like for example both Armillia and Isaura have a vertical structure and they both have pipes that rise up. Another connection I noticed is the constant presence of water in all cities. Wells, lakes, bathtubs etc. Reading Viviana Correa’s blog (http://vivianacorrea-eng10.blogspot.com/2012/06/women-in-city.html) helped me realize the connection of women. All cities are named after woman, and most of them contain a woman In their description. Is section 3, I noticed that this trend a little bit more. The section starts with Cities and Desire, a city called Zobeide, were men came chasing a dream of a perfect woman. The rest of the cities also include woman as a symbol of desire. This may be Calvino’s way of showing that the element of one city, is present in al the rest. With woman, he shows the elements of Cities and Desires are present in the other cities as well. Maybe in section 4, he will show how the elements of Cities and Signs are present in other cities as well, and so on.

Why would Calvino be describing so many cities if in the end they are only one? I think that to be able to understand this, I need to understand the figurative and Meta literary meaning of a city within this book.  I think that once we understand what cities stand for, we will understand the message of the book. Do they stand for a certain aspect of literature? For literature in general? Or do they stand for ideas?