Category: Reading Response 4

Between page 94 and 95 Calvin talks about Adelma. It’s hard for me to not relate most cities to the lived experience I’ve had with cities I’ve be¡en in, but in many ways Adelma represents a bunch of things I find interesting when looking at/observing a city or a space of function. Firstly it’s the question of a ghost, or rather what it means to be a ghost. With Calvino mentioning the dad, and the appearance and flux of an individual exhibiting multiple persons, many of them dead, perhaps inappropriately I couldn’t help but think of the idea of a ghost and the city. 

In some senses, I was thinking about the idea of haunting, which has come up a bunch this semester for me (in class/philosophical discussion). In this sense of hauntology, the question becomes less about the idea of a literal ghost, but one about (arguably) the materialization of ideas, aspirations, and futures that were not realized. While I could delve into the philosophy of this a lot, my interest was much more in then relating to this city, in terms of how it sometimes feels to be in the city. This is much less true now that I’ve been able to be more in the city and explore it’s spaces, innards, and people more, but especially in the first few years of being here, and in comparison to Dubai (which I used to call home), things felt… dead? 

My father often used to say that this is a city of gloom, slowness, and dead people. I used to be annoyed at how he phrased it, and I still do today, but in an abstracted sense, I wonder how parts of this (conflated with the reflections the book has in looking at this dynamic-shapeshifting-face of the dead) might actually be true. Not limited to Abu Dhabi per se, but if there were a way to glue together A.D and Dubai, create an amalgamated city, I think it would feel a lot like Adelma. 

Of course all of this has mostly to do with thinking of the person/individual, or even collective movement of people/existence of people (communities), but I think what Calvin is also trying to look into is to the environment that allows for such people to exist. Or even if he isn’t, it made me think about what the environment does or enables. Which is to say, Adelma can’t be it without being accommodating to the kind of people it inhabits, right? The things that aren’t in focus are things like (on page 95) “”climbed the steps in a line, bent beneath demijohns and barrels” and “a little toward that crowd that crammed those narrow streets”. Though it isn’t focused, I was enamored to question what it meant for a city to allow, if not make/support a lifestyle that enables it to become this kind of a dying, soul-cycling function of an existence.

In any given city, what role does time play? In what ways does the storyteller use time to convey an impression of the city?

Reading about Eutropia (64-65), there’s a weird sense of simultaneity, of several things occurring at one moment- as seen in the quote “not one but all these cities together”. At the same time there’s also a sense of temporariness, since the entire population decides to move to another city in the same territory as Eutropia, and completely change their lives- they also find different ways to spend their time, and different people to spend it with. Everyone does someone else’s job so the total number of jobs remain the same.

Eutropia then is the new city, identical to the old Eutropia but for the location. The role of time is therefore arbitrary, it’s based on feeling, almost whimsical. It feels almost surreal, with no concrete concept of the passage of time. It also seems like the way people spend their time is based on their desire as opposed to necessity, they do whichever jobs they like, talk to whoever they want.

The author uses the word “renewed” which implies a sort of life span to the city. Ironically, the author also creates a sense of monotony, since “inhabitants repeat the same scenes, with the actors changed;”, and a cyclical pattern, as people move in “rotation”. So while a single person might live manhy different lives, the population as a whole performs the same functions. There’s a big difference between the macro and the micro, with time passing continuously if you look closely but seeming to stand still if you look at the larger picture. I loved the mythological reference to Mercury, the Roman god of travel (among other things) who is associated with the “fickle”. The author’s use of metaphor (acting and scenes) as well as the implication of temporariness in the mythological reference create two opposing senses of time- one of constant change and one of the mundane and routine. I’m not sure I would like to stay in Eutropia, but maybe that’s the point.

The spring break reading was a nice change this semester since I got to read a fictional piece. It was also very interesting to look into artworks that were inspired by Invisible Cities and see how illustrators visualized these mysterious locations described by Italo Calvino. The city that stood out to me was Octavia, a spiderweb city (Chapter 5 ). It is described as a city that is “hanging” over the void between two mountains. It is composed of chains and ropes that connect buildings with catwalks. The city is “suspended over the abyss” as deep as more than hundreds of feet. Hanging ropes and passages that compose a spider web instantly reminded be me of those rope parks where you climb around a hanging maze or circuit balancing on ropes above the ground. The description of the city itself also brought up a somewhat familiar image in my head but I am still unable to remember what kind of book/movie it reminds me of. The chapter provides a very brief description of Octavia, but I was still fascinated by the idea of a hanging spiderweb city between mountains. The artworks visualizing this place were also so captivating and visually interesting. However, what stands out to me the most is the themes of temporality and mortality this city brings to the story. Marco Polo says, “the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities” (p. 75), which at first seems almost paradoxical. How can your life be certain if it is quite literally hanging on a thin thread (or web, in this case)? Yet the author explains, “They know the net will last only so long”, and, suddenly, it all makes sense. It is a very existential philosophical thought. We are all aware of our own mortality, which is probably the only certain thing about our uncertain lives. The acceptance of their own temporality mystifies the inhabitants of Octavia. It also translates the storyteller’s impression of the city and in relation to time. Since Marco Polo does not give a lot of attention to describing this city, there is little that we know about the daily life there, and it makes it seems like Octavia exists in a time-capsule without a clear “now” or “then”. If this city was a virtual environment, it probably would not have a linear storyline but it would rather exist in one isolated moment where the user would get to explore the environment and make observations about its transience without actually witnessing the city’s inevitable doom.

The city which stood out the most to me was the city of Fedora. Besides the name that reminded me of the hat, Fedora had such an interesting and abstract approach to the construction of cities and desire. It was stated that the city takes on many forms based on historical “what-ifs” and this reminded me of the alternate timeline concept in the Black Mirror episode “Bandersnatch”. In a way, the alternate timeline concept is something that I relate to every city I’ve lived in, and in the case of Abu Dhabi I was thinking of how the smallest histroical detail could have changed how the city is constructed otday (i.e. if they never discovered oil). The city wasn’t particularly described in vivid detail, but was explained in a more abstract way, as inhabitants of the city can visit the metal building with the crystal globes and “choose the city that corresponds to his desires”. This can easily translate into a virtual environment through narrative, RPG games, virtual reality experiences, etc. I would be very invested in creating a virtual environment based on the choices that users make, and have different scenarios ready depending on these choices.

Time plays an important role in the construction of Fedora as a city, and in many ways the city depends on the passage and abstraction of time. I’ve always been fascinated by how timelines and reality could be altered by the slightest changes. The storyteller conveys that the city is a gray metropolis, but mentions that due to different choices people made over time, and how due to these choices the Medusa pond dried up, and elephants are banished from the city.

“Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have taken if, for one reason or another, it had not become what we today”.

The city that stood out to me the most was Eusapia. It is a city that has an identical city underground where all the corpses are carried down to continue their time after death. I found the idea of the existence of both a dead and alive city very intriguing, they say the underground is more advanced and that the living Eusapia had taken to copy the underground. There are also thoughts of the underground Eusapia being the original who built up the upper Eusapia so there is no longer a way of knowing who is dead and who is alive. The concept is such an interesting concept, I love the dualities of both and I think one can imagine being there and exploring the two different areas. I can’t help but think of this as an idea for a story in a virtual reality game where the player could play a human that passes away and finds themselves in the underground city, exploring the place and working on becoming one of the hooded brothers being able to transport between the two worlds meanwhile figuring out the mysteries and answering questions of the truth of this city.

The passage of time isn’t that obvious in the cities description but time does indeed play a role since the city revolves around the living and dead and humans take time to live their lives, pass away and move to the underground. The writer also speaks about the underground city innovating their city at a faster pace to the point that one can’t tell which is the living city and which is the one following along. The people’s work and innovation show the passage of time.

Other examples of living cities have more in terms of description to show the passage of time like Leonia. The city of Leonia is one that changes day by day, they expel goods every day and it expels them more and more every time they do so. As time passes by their surrounding boundaries are all just rubbish and landfills.

Out of all the cities that my mind wandered around, Despina is the most memorable and connected to me. I feel so connected to this city maybe because I understand this city the most. And I understand this city the most maybe because I feel so connected to this city.

In Invisible Cities, Calvino illustrates Despina as “a border city between two deserts,” the reason being that this city locates between two barrens: a desert and a sea (15). This description, however, gives rise to several questions: what differentiates this city from those deserts? What prevents this city from falling into or becoming a part of one of those barrens? And the most of important of all, what is so special about Despina to be able to withstand these two inhabitable lands? As unraveled in the text, Despina’s power to resist these two hostile geographies comes from its ability to fulfill, or at least to create an illusion that it has the ability to fulfill, travelers’ desires. For instance, a traveler in the desert sees the city as “a ship; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a vessel that will take him away from the desert…” (14). On the other hand, a sailor on the sea thinks of this city as “a camel’s withers…; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a camel from whose pack hang wineskins and bags of candied fruit…”(14). This shows that although these travelers see the city or think of the city differently, depending on which front they are from, they all see this city as a place that will be able to fulfill their desires, a place of salvation. At the end, it does not matter where they journey from because this city will be able to satisfy all their needs (or at least that what the city makes them believe). Thus, as long as travelers see the city this way, the city will be able to stand strong between these two deserts.

Despina’s ability to fulfill, or at least to deceive that it is able to fulfill, travelers’ desires is the reason why I associated myself closely with this city; it reminds me home. For me, home is, or at least seems to be, the most habitable place in the world. And home is, or at least seems to be, the place where all my needs and desires can be fulfilled. In addition, it does not matter which direction you see or enter your home from; your home will always make you feel home just like how Despina is able to make travelers hospitable. For these reasons, I am able to create a connection this Despina much easier than I am able to connect to other described cities in this book.

Post a semi-brief (2-3 paragraphs) response to one of the following prompts for the reading, and put it under category Reading Response 4. 

• Is there a city that stood out, or that you found especially memorable? Why? Does any city remind you of a city you have lived in or visited, and if so, in what ways?
• Many cities are described in explicit detail—magnolia gardens, radiator pipes, facades, inhabitants—but some aspects are more abstract. How might these more conceptual details translate into a virtual environment and what we might do while there?
• In any given city, what role does time play? In what ways does the storyteller use time to convey an impression of the city?