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Invisible Cities (Vintage Classics)
 
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Invisible Cities (Vintage Classics) (Paperback)

by Italo Calvino (Author), William Weaver (Editor)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New Ed edition (2 Oct 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099429837
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099429838
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Calvino, Italo

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Product Description

Review

'The most beautiful of his books throws up ideas, allusions, and breathtaking imaginative insights on almost every page. Each time he returns from his travels, Marco Polo is invited by Kublai Khan to describe the cities he has visited...Although he makes Marco Polo summon up many cities for the Khan's imagination to feed on, Calvino is describing only one city in this book. Venice, that decaying heap of incomparable splendour, still stands as substantial evidence of man's ability to create something perfect out of chaos' Paul Bailey Times Literary Supplement


Observer

‘Whole chapters of unforced poetic prose in which insight and fantasy are perfectly matched…an exquisite world’
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Invisible Cities (Vintage Classics)
85% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
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 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, 27 Oct 2006
By Luis A. G. Prado (São Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This book is a masterpiece for me. It accompanied me throughout a long journey that I took in Europe in the past. It is written in a poetic way that makes you think, reflect and enter into the fantastic world of the invisible cities of Kublai Khan's empire, created by Calvino. Marco Polo works for the Khan. He has to visit many towns of the Mongolian empire so that later he can share his impressions with the great Khan. This is mainly because the empire is so big that Kublai Khan would never be able to visit all towns of his empire.

Each chapter has the name of a town, which is described by Marco Polo. In addition, there are many dialogs between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo that are, in my point of view, the most exciting part of the book. The dialogs are so intelligent and stimulating that I read some of them many times. They can trigger our natural curiosity about the way we see things around us, the future, the past, the present, etc. It is a book to be read in a slow pace so we can reflect upon each part. It helped me to slow down my frequently rushed rhythm of life. How conscious are we while we write the pages of our lives?
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, 14 Feb 2001
This review is from: Invisible Cities (Paperback)
A book that describes every imaginery city, every city that you have ever visited, every city that you have ever wanted to visit or imagine, or the city you have come from which you wish to be as you imagined it to be...this is a book about the language of the imagination, a book of cities as pychological states, physical states, sensory states...A book about descriptions ? Yes. But descriptions that have a transcendant quality. Not much narrative ? True, but yet they contain fragments of narrative that have an extraordinary quality, about place, and what place means to us all. Calvino was a truely great novelist, one of the great European novelists of this century, on par with Beckett..yet less bleak, no less universal. This is one, if not the best, of his "books". If you like this also try "If on an invisible night" and "Mr Paloma".

If you like to combine "thought-provoking" with sensual - a very unusual and wonderful combination.

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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Sublime, 10 May 2004
Before reading this novel, you must note one thing - there is no plot whatsoever. Despite what the blurb says about Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, that is simply a framework, a structure to hold a series of highly impressionistic descriptions of cities together. The book covers a remarkable range of ideas - death, life, religion and relationships to name but four. However, the lack of plot does not make it any less worthwhile nor any less literary - the prose is lush and poetic, lucid and evocative, and it would be hard not to be captivated by Calvino's remarkable style. Inventive, enlessly imaginative, extremely experimental, Calvino created a beautiful and memorable book - in effect, Calvino wrote the plotless novel.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable again and again
Once a creative work is released there is nothing more it's creator can do, it is now with it's audience to make of it what they will, that is if they take any notice of it at... Read more
Published 22 days ago by Mick Read

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
I love this book. It had a huge impact on me and the direction in which my design studies developed when I first read it about 20 years ago. Very highly recommended.
Published 27 days ago by Elvis Himselvis

5.0 out of 5 stars Special, simple and sacred
As I chased the spectre of the authors intention around the turrets, the skylines, the sewers, the living and the dead of these cities, the glimpses of layered meaning that... Read more
Published 2 months ago by G. C. Brown

2.0 out of 5 stars Not one thing or another

Not poetry, not brilliant prose, not even any hint of hidden truths or meanings behind each description. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Hub

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best. His Best. A Masterpiece.
Don't believe the hype. I know that Calvino became famous in the States with If on a Winter Night... but this is his real masterpiece. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Vittorio Caffè

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and Wonderful
I was surprised to see some readers did not enjoy this book. Perhaps they had been expecting something else. Invisible Cities is close to being the opposite of a narrative. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Alan Jacobs

5.0 out of 5 stars a fantastic trip
This book has to be one of Calvino's masterpieces and one of the most intriguing of the 20th century. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Marco Colombo

1.0 out of 5 stars oh my!
My eyelids feel heavy and sleep overcomes me whenever I open this book.

It is extremely dull to read this book, though I suspect you're considered a total Philistine... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Nt Deregowski

5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the most beautiful and imaginative prose written by man...

This is truly the work of a genius: Calvino's imagination here exceeds the normal limits of poetic prose, and the beauty of this book is near limitless... Read more
Published on 3 Jan 2007 by N.W. Coast

4.0 out of 5 stars A technical warning about "Vintage classics" edition
Not sure whether this applies to all "Vintage classics" prints of this book, but the one I just go has so miserable printing quality that it is actually quite difficult to read... Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2004

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