No Vacancy

In Francisco Serna's blog he touched some very interesting ideas to what the cities themselves stand for in these concise descriptions leading to a puzzle I yet haven't found the key to. Serna talked of Invisible Cities  as a map Calvino presents the reader symbolizing a road through literature but I find the book to be much more than that. Not only can you look at aspects like those presented in Marco's expeditions but you find morals to life and kind of underlying meaning with much philosophical background. 

"And you know that in the long journey ahead of you, when to keep awake against the camel's swaying or the junk's rocking, you start summoning up your memories one by one, your wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other

battles, on your return from Euphemia, the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every equinox."

As I've read through a large portion of the book as well and I do find myself searching for so many lost pieces to this puzzle I don't feel void or empty. On the contrary I feel the cities have shown the Kahn entry to corners of his empire he had never assimilated. Its very weird, but I find Marco Polo's travels as a guide through life and issues that real people face everyday. These troubles are mixed in with the connection the text makes on itself but the book is very far from being meaningless or empty. Serna says he extracts irrelevant messages from the cities but i think he's missed a big portion of the book in which the literal and figurative meanings converge creating the invisibility of these cities. 

Misplaced Elements

We're diving into section three with the understanding Marco Polo has recurred to symbols and signs in his description to Kahn. The words are no longer sufficient to fill the void created around each city so its up to him to recur to other methods in order to transmit his sole message. 

"So, for each city, after the fundamental information given in precise words, he followed with a mute commentary, holding up his hands, palms out, or backs, or sideways, in straight or oblique movements, spasmodic or slow. A new kind of dialogue was established: the Great Khan's white hands, heavy with rings, answered with stately movements the sinewy, agile hands of the merchant. "

The images the Kahn had first assimilated with the cities when Polo was unable to speak are now filling his mind and becoming necessary tools in his descriptions. Its interesting to see how the return to the basic and primitive somehow produces better understanding for the Kahn. Calvino's idea is full of irony but indeed, makes a lot of sense to the reader. Kahn assimilates to what he considers known and is distant to detailed descriptions serving no meaning what so ever. Remembering Cities & Signs I couldn't help thinking about the symbolism that every sign meant something it didn't mean. Could we connect this idea with the images Marco portrays to Kahn or are these completely separate events?

"Kublai Khan had noticed that Marco Polo's cities resembled one another, as if the passage from one to another involved not a journey but a change of elements."

There is now a distinct connection between the cities that even Kahn is assimilating. We have clear resemblenzes in which physical characteristics amongst cities find themselves repeated, but the philosophical ideas seem to shift in between each city. I now see that for Kahn to understand the essence of his whole empire, or for us to understand the book, we need to connect these elements and form a conclusion Marco, or Calvino is leading us to. 

Conservation of the Primitive

I'm finally pulling out of the darkness. Calvino has opened our eyes with important connections I hadn't previously understood. Whenever we find dialogue between Kublai and Marco it's now clear to me Calvino is communicating with the readers through metaliterature. He uses this as an added meaning to the actual text. Its the book commenting on itself giving us further understanding between the literal text and the figurative understanding. 

"All this so that Marco Polo could explain or imagine explaining or be imagined explaining or succeed finally in explaining to himself that what he sought was always something lying ahead, and even if it was a matter of the past it was a past that changed gradually as he advanced on his journey, because the traveller's past changes according to the route he has followed: not the immediate past, that is, to which each day that goes by adds a day, but the more remote past."

This quote gave me a very broad interpretation of what both Calvino wanted to transmit to us figuratively and what the text was literally commenting on. There's something very interesting to how your past and your own life experiences form your future life. I'll be moving a bit off topic to talk about Sigmund Freud. He talks about something called "conservation of the primitive" which I found to relate completely to Calvino's text. Its your life experiences as a young boy, some which you don't even remember, what form your life and your interpretation of different challenges that will be presented to you throughout it. Freud says deep inside your subconscious these events form behavioral trends, directly affecting your life. Calvino is making reference to the fact that we are unable to ignore our past actions for they will make us who we are. 

Looking at it through metaliterature I came to realize how the whole issue of past and present could be talking about how the "utopia's" description we are reading will lead us to a final conclusion we'll soon come to discover. Our future changes as it is and understanding of the past.

Which order?

As I began reading Invisible Cities  it soon came to my attention how Calvino makes order a key part to the understanding of the reading. You are presented with the option of reading the book from cover to cover or individualize each section such as Cities & Memories, and reading all those first. Mine was pretty straight forward: cover to cover.

"Leaving there and proceeding for three days towards the east, you reach Diomira..." 

Here, the first city is being presented to us with a short description. As we continue on the text, Calvino's description introduces a whole new city called Isidora. How can we find a viable connection between these two? I realized as I continued reading through section one that it would be very hard to find any connection what so ever. This lead me to question the order in which I was reading the book. I skimmed into section two, lining up all the Cities & Desire, but to my surprise still there was no apparent meaning. No understanding beyond the literal text is present so its extremely confusing to find a relation between any of the cities mentioned above. I'll have to look at the text from a more figurative point of view to find a clear understanding of what this book is really about.


"The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age."

Here Calvino made a very interesting comparison which mentioned how the man reaches the perfect city but no as he imagined, being young. He's now an old man watching the world go by from what looked as perfection. Calvino makes a great comparison with a very troubling issue of life in which men work forever and are never able to enjoy there success. He definitely caught my attention there but the connections aren't here yet.

The book reminds somewhat to a movie by Guy Ritchie called Snatch. His technique focuses different plot lines to converge around one central story. At the end they all come together showing the viewer, with impecable perfection, what the whole movie is really about. I don't see Invisible Cities as a book were something like this will happen, but we'll just have to wait and see.

The End

Finally we finished Slaughter House-Five. It's been a long journey, one I've definitely enjoyed. Vonnegut's genius and unimaginable creativity carried me through the whole novel without ever wanting to stop. It also brought hundreds of questions he left unanswered. I'm now left in a limbo wanting to sit down and talk with Vonnegut to see if I can clear my doubts. I guess I'll just have to check my schedule to see if I'm not too busy.
The book met its objective to leave something on the reader. I can safely say I'll never forget reading this masterpiece because of all the different ideas the reader can extract. A few I grabbed from the novel were its clear anti-war message and the emphasize on time which really made me understand moments in life will never come back. They'll live in the back of our heads as memories for us to cherish or regret but we will never live them again.
The ending was more than just a bit disappointing. It left more questions rather than bringing any answers but its hard to imagine any other way Vonnegut could've ended the novel. The biggest question I have with regards to the novel has been cooking in my head for a while now. Does Billy ever live through his entire life? He was only visiting specific moments in time so what happened to all those other days. The thousands of days full of the same routine, the cloudy Monday mornings and the sunny Saturday afternoons. Where they went we'll never know.
It was nice meeting Billy. Living day inn and day out the experiences that shaped the life of such a wonderful character. Meeting Weary, Rumfoord, Valencia, Montana, Campbell, the Tralfamadorians, and Trout was also great. Getting so close, so personal to these fictitious was a task only an author like Vonnegut could achieve. To all of them I say bye bye, it was great reading the book. To Vonnegut I say rest in piece. So it goes.

Certainty

I can say I've loved reading this book, I can also say I've hated it just as much. It's continuous references to other parts of the book or other people such as Howard Campbell have led me to Google search more than a dozen times. Above all the book has been very enjoyable and interesting which is really the most important. I'm getting closer and closer to the end and really don't know what to expect. I just know for sure its not going to be conventional. It's not going to be happy or sad, it will just be.

In Francisco Serna's blog, The Reading Tavern, I found some very interesting points. He talks about how Billy's destiny is presented to us in the book and questions the fact that there is no attempt from him to change the moments as he lives them. Several times in the book I asked myself the same question. There is really no answer and its up to us to develop our own theories. Francisco mentions he considers Billy does, in fact, have freewill. He is reliving the moments and therefore, has the ability to change the events. But, does he? I believe Billy has complete control over all his experiences but dosen't show any interest in changing any of the events. Why dosen't he want to avoid tragedy? If in fact his destiny is already predetermined how can he know how to act in each specific situation? Sometimes the time traveling seemed more like a dream, like a clip from movie. You can see it, hear it, but you can't touch it or change any of it. But if there is no central plot where is the dream coming from, where is Billy? He is just there. These questions will really only bring more but maybe Vonnegut will surprise us at the end answering a few of these. 

So It Goes...

A book is made out of letters, words, and sentences that later fill up entire pages to entertain us, the readers.  Now lets ask ourselves this question: What makes a great book? There is really no answer but in Vonnegut's novel specific words and phrases are essential for the book's development.

It's not very hard to notice how he uses words to play with the readers using his incomparable imagination and satiric voice displaying his genius. One of his tricks is italicizing words that make reference to a period in time. Whenever Vonnegut refers to was, were, is, and will he makes special emphasize because as we know the novel mentions time is not linear. According to Billy everything is because there is not past present or future, a Tralfamadorian belief. 

One aphorism Vonnegut includes repeated times in the text is "So It Goes". He mentions this after any death is commented on bringing a very informal tone to the novel. Its not grief what he's displaying for he believes there is no tragedy in death. It isn't the end of the journey for there is no end, its just another point in life. The continuous use of this really takes the reader into the novel and makes them question, analyze, and doubt its use and meaning. His informal register also helps us familiarize ourselves much more with the characters and story. Very few novels have really ever taken me so deep into the story line with the use of words and maxims.

Various techniques are used to achieve the desired effect. One of my favorites is repetition. There was one case that really left me mind blown. It didn't prove a point, but it expressed the idea that everything in the book is interlaced. Through the first chapters Billy is traveling with Weary and the Three Musketeers, they then die and not long after Weary dies but Billy survives. Many years later he's with his wife who appears eating candy bars several times throughout the novel. Interestingly the fisrt time Vonnegut makes mention of the candy bars she is eating a Three Musketeers candy bar. The connection may be meaningless but it left me thinking for days and even now I'm still mind blow, perpetually mind blown. 

Vonnegut's word choice and technique display his genius.