#50: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

As a huge fan of Calvino’s If on a winter night a traveler, I thought this book would be a nice follow-up. The story portayed here, however, was completely unlike the style of what I had imagined in that it’s not necessarily a story, but a continuous description of the way people live. I found it strange to read about imagined cities while living in a particularly well known one. Every description reminded me of New York in some fashion or another, especially in that sometimes I think this metropolis is something we all made up to make ourselves feel important. Anyhow, Calvino consistantly uses a language that doesn’t quite compare to anything else. It tends to envelop the reader and place her in a world much that feels a lot like this. My copy of Invisible Cities from the library had multiple margin notes and pencil underlines from previous readers, which added to the experience of knowning that just like an imaginary city, books about the subject can also be communal.