Invisible Cities

While hanging in there at the busy Royal Highland Show I found a review by P.D.James which helped me to understand Calvino's famous book, "Invisible Cities".

She writes: "Marco Polo, the narrator of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, does not attempt to describe the city of Zaira by simply listing the number of steps in its streets that rise like stairways, or the precise type of zinc tiles used on its roofs. He knows that mere facts alone are not sufficient. For Zaira, like all great cities, consists of "relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past". Monuments, city squares, even street names are dense with memories and recollections: the city is a place of living history, a mashup of past and present." www.guardian.co.uk search for "Boulevards of dreams" (26.6.10).


Diana Hand "The destroyed place" lithograph






I have owned a copy of this book for many years and always found it impenetrable. Looking on-line I am not the only one. I feel I know exactly what he is writing about but I cannot quite "get" it, which is frustrating, particularly as my drawings and prints are about this. But now I am a step nearer. I am reading a chapter a day... most days.