Invisible Cities and Labyrinths have been close at hand ever since my Berkeley days, including a couple trips to China. But the dirty secret is that I’ve never completely read either book. I hadn’t gotten around to the non-fiction essays of Labyrinths, and my attempted read of Invisible Cities was waylaid by the deep sleep deprivation of studio. As a privileged knowledge worker comfortably hunkering down during the pandemic, I was fortunate to rectify both omissions over the past year.
I’m happy I did. I suspect the book endures as a classic because it is a lovely collection of prose poems that is perfectly suited for random sampling. Which is a fine practice, but such a habit misses the structure of this book.
The algorithm is nominally obvious from looking at the table of contents. Then again, reading a book by the TOC is knowing a City via its subway map. Calvino starts in Marco and Kublai’s dream world, slowly introduces anachronisms, bringing the reader into the present day (now delightfully patinaed from the vantage point of the 21st century), toys with darker themes, and leaves on a wistful note.
The flow is as rich as the individual pieces. The book is carefully ordered arrangement, and the reader is well served going covered to cover. My copy still sits next to the bed; unlike many of its compatriots who quickly return to the shelves, this one ain’t going nowhere.