The Travels of Marco Polo, written by Rustichello da Pisa, is a 13th-century travelogue consisting of various stories told by Marco Polo, narrating Polo's travels through Asia between 1276 and 1291. On the other hand, the novel "Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino is a collection of explanations describing the states of fifty-five different cities (ex. Chloe and Irene etc.) Polo came to the court of the fabled empire Kublai Khan. Although “Invisible Cities” is often called a novel, it is not correct to call it one as there is no character development nor plot happening inside the novel.
Similar to the struggles experienced while defining the term "literature" and "comparative literature" it is also difficult to fit the novel "Invisible Cities"…show more content… When one first begins reading the novel, “Invisible Cities” seems like a well-comprised selection of prose works on imaginary cities. However, when Calvino begins describing the actual cities in the novel, the sophisticated interactions between the two characters (Kublai and Polo) make it challenging to determine whether Polo is reporting on the representations of the differing aspects of a single city or different cities with the same aspect in each of them. As one peruses through the novel for a while, it quickly becomes clear that while some passages are excessively faked beyond imagination, the writing as a whole points to a larger point of view than the trivial descriptions of cities. It is not just a work that stimulates the reader to ponder upon the concept of living in a city, but also upon the concept of home, and even the concept of…show more content… Why would Calvino write a novel that uses Polo's travel diary "The Travels of Marco Polo" as a clear background, and merely exaggerate some elements of it? The funniest fact about the novel is that Polo and Khan do not speak the same language. In order to somehow interact with Khan, Polo uses various items found in the cities to communicate his point across. There is one huge implication throughout the whole book: That each character understands the other through his/her own interpretations of what the other character is saying. Such inference leaves the majority of the decisions outlined in the book to be determined by the individual reader
