Thursday, March 31, 2011

"Invisible Cities-Hidden Cities 1" by Italo Calvino

In this post I will discuss the next part of the Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. The subject here is the hidden city of Olinda and its magnifying panorama.



In general, the city is kind of mysterious place where only its inhabitants can observe its enlarging. With the observing eye, they somehow reveal the roofs, antennas, the skylight, the gardens, the pools, the kiosk in the squares, and so on. However, Olinda is not the only the one that is growing faster. Calvino makes a difference between the concentric circles and tree-trunks, which each year add one more ring. Olinda is struggling to adopt the new infrastructure,however, the city preserves the old architecture such as old walls maintaining their original proportions. On the other hand, in the heart of the city the new Olinda is becoming larger and larger in its reduced dimensions.

Monday, March 21, 2011

"Invisible Cities- Cities & Eyes 3" by Italo Calvino

Another interesting story from Calvino's novel - Invisible Cities. This is a short story which mainly consists of explanations about the city of Baucis. The city is characterized by its wilderness and methods that people use to live there. I found it very impressing the way that the author describes the standards of living in this city while he constantly uses his broad imagination. He indicates that these people are far  from the rest of the world. Particularly, Calvino describes their perception of the world filled with hate and dislike. On the other hand, they respect it so greatly that they avoided all contacts with the world. The author tries to emphasize the fact that they are  technologically and culturally in disadvantage. 

Italo Calvino- Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer mainly in short stories and novels. Some of his main works are The Castle of Crossed Destines  and Cosmicomics,a collection of the short stories. In particular, he became famous with Invisible Cities ,a novel where the Calvino used a wide imagination. Specifically, he explains the cities which were discovered by the explorer, Marco Polo. The book consist of conversations between the two main characters in this book, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. The part that I was highly impressed  is the "Cities & Memory 3".

"Cities & Memory 3"

 Here the author explains the city of Zaira, illustrating as city of high bastions. Calvino describes Zaira in several details starting from infrastructure of the city and then continues with his broad imagination. He assumes that memory is part of each period of our life,and we cannot escape from it. It follows us everywhere despite that we are not aware of it. The climax of this great short dialog is when the Calvino define memory with the words

As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks up like a sponge and expands.

This story enables the reader to feel unique experience of the Calvino's perception about memory. Moreover, the author provided us with great imagination from which we have a clear picture as we easily conceive the real message of this story.