The Past Present in the Present

To finish the book I had just left the conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. I found out as I read them that first, Marco Polo ratifies that every city he narrated about, he said something about Venice. He continues explaining the reason he did this and he says: “Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words are erased. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.” (Pg. 87)

I find this quote very powerful. Maybe because I also believe once you talk about one memory you are letting it out thus letting it go. Instead if you keep it to yourself you won’t forget it. This is just the way I see things and weather it is or it is not true, when I read this fragment I felt completely sympathetic to Marco Polo’s explanation.

Polo and the Emperor start talking about the past, memories and dreams. Khan says that Marco Polo’s narrations of the cities are actually a journey through his own memory. Meaning he is describing only what he knows because he has experienced it. That is basically how every human being works, from experience. Even when we say we don’t like looking to the past, or we want to start again, the past is always influencing us and shaping us to do everything. Think about it, even when we say, “I want to erase my past, start form zero” the past is still present and it is the one making us do that decision. 
When Marco Polo tells Khan about his experience in Adelma, the second City & the dead, he sees his grandmother, his father and a fisherman he had seen when he was a kid. These characters are part of his memories, of his past. This ratifies the Khan’s words that Marco Polo is doing a journey through his memories. The past is always existing and influencing the present. 

"City of Canals"

In my past blog I briefly mentioned how most of the cities narrated are described with canals, wells, lakes and other water sources. Even though I thought it was a weird coincidence the only thing I could think about was weather he was narrating the same city. As I continued reading, one specific city caught my attention by the emphasis on the canals.

Esmeralda. Trading City number five. It was the city of water, made up by a network of canals and streets. As Marco Polo continues describing this city, he mentions that to go from one place to another there is always the option of going by land or by boat.

Think about it. Picture this city. “…It is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional routes…”(Pg. 88). 

Now tell me, what came into your mind? Another city maybe? A city you do know or have at least heard about?

Well, I hope you are thinking of Venice. Yes, the “City of Canals”.

If we go a little into history you should know that Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant. Does this mean that Esmeralda is actually Venice? Maybe. Taking it further, I believe all the cities are Venice.

So answering my questions, it is not that there is no city. There is one city, Venice, and Marco Polo is adding more fiction to it to narrate it to the emperor.

Even though at first I was reluctant to accept this idea, it was confirmed in class. There is actually only one city.

As I read the last cities, I saw another pattern: rats. Many of the cities had something to do with rats, either there were rats in the sewers or he compares the behavior of the people to rats. In the fourth Hidden City, Theodora, rats were the last enemy for man in terms of the possession of the city. I decided to look up what it was with rats and Venice and I found out that during the 17^th century the “black plague”, otherwise known as "Italian Plague" roamed Venice. It was caused by the large amounts of plague infested rats brought by merchant ships that arrived here. Maybe that’s why rats were continuously mentioned.

Anyways. Now we know that there are no real cities, they are all describing Venice in different ways.

 Here is some proof that there still are rats in Venice :). 

Tying the Knots

Gods.

An important ongoing theme in the book.

Gods are first mentioned on Cities & Memory 1. When Diomira is described to have a “bronze statue of all the gods” (Pg. 7)

Cities & Memory 5, Maurilia, “the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their places.” (pg.31)

Cities and Signs 1, the city of Tamara, “from the doors of the temples the gods’ statues are seen, each portrayed with his attributes-…” (Pg.13).

Thin Cities 1, Isaura. It is explained that there are two kinds of religions in this city. “The city’s gods… live in the depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise, suspended form a cable…” (Pg. 20)

Can there be an important message behind the gods? Is Calvino trying to tell us something about religion?  I mean, apart from the fact that religion is an important part of a community’s character and culture, does it have something else?

While looking for patterns in religion and gods, I found that water is also mentioned a lot. Canals, seas, wells, ships, lakes, streams are all mentioned whilst describing the cities. It sometimes made me think Marco Polo was narrating the same city but with different descriptions. 

If you pay close attention while reading you’ll find, or at least I did, that in many of the cities descriptions such as stairways, canals, seas, and statues within others, are constant and although barely mentioned, they are the things that make the cities alike. Not only material things, but for example in the cities of Cities & Desires, most, if not all of them talk about a way to earn money or wealth. Either by working, trading, or family monopolies they are obtaining a form of wealth. Fulfilling their desires. It also shows the consequences of excess, when it mentions that even though the citizens or visitors enjoy fulfilling their desires, they are after all the slaves of those desires. 

No Invisible Cities

So as I mentioned before, I read the book according to the type of city. I did this to find patterns between each city that were put together under the same category.

Cities & Memory. Diomira, Isidora, Zaira, Zora and Maurilia. They all have something to do with memories, obviously. Dimomira, the foreigner feels like all the things from this city are familiar. Isidora is the desired city, the city of the foreigner’s dreams. However, it is like a memory because in the desired city the man is a young man, but here he is already old, therefore, “desires are already memories” (pg. 8) Zaira consists of the relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past. The past events are all parts of the memories.

Before I say what Zora has to do with memories, I have to say Zora is the one that made me more curious of the five memory cities… “Zora, a city that no one, having seen it, can forget.” (Pg.15) “In order to be more easily remembered, Zora has languished, disintegrated, disappeared. The earth has forgotten her.” (Pg. 16)

Then no one has ever seen Zora because no one can ever forget it once they’ve seen it. Then how can Marco Polo describe the city so richly? This immediately made me go back to the connection we had done in class about the Emperor’s New Clothes. Maybe there really are no cities, and he is just making up all the descriptions for the Kublai Khan. Can that be possible?

Maurilia is quite complex too. “It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.” (Pg. 31)  It this part telling us that the past and present of this city is so different it seems like a completely different one? Is it another city? Or does this follow my theory that there are really no cities at all? After all, the title is Invisible Cities….

Women in the City

As I looked at the table of contents of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, I was deciding which way to read it. First I thought I wanted to be original, so I might as well not read it the conventional way. I decided to read all the number ones first then the number twos and so on. As I read I realized it would be better if I read all the cities with the same names first and thus it would be easier to see the patterns in each city that gave them their names.

While I was color-coding the chapters (yes, I color coded them) so that when I read it it was faster I, noticed two patterns. First, every name corresponds to five cities. Meaning there are five Cities and Memory, five Cities and eyes and so on. Second, all the cities are named after woman. For that I have not found an explanation, but I’m positive it will be something important.

For now what I really know is that women have an important role in the cities. Not only because their names are female names, but also because most of Marco Polo’s narrations have woman in their cities. For example the fifth City and Desire, Zobeide, was created because men of various places had the same dream. “They saw a women running at night through and unknown city; she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of perusing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her.” (Pg. 45) To try and find her they created the city, each one adding a different detail from their dream. So in other words they basically created the city because of a woman. 

Another example is in the fourth Cities and Signs, Hypatia, “You have to go to the stables and riding rings to see the beautiful women who mount the saddle, thighs naked, greaves on their calves, and as soon as a young foreigner approaches, they fling him on the piles of hay or sawdust and press their firm nipples against him.” (Pg.48)

I believe this pattern with woman will be something important. For now I will keep on looking for more of these patterns and signs. 

Essence will Perdure

So genes are the selfish things inside our DNA that make us how we are anatomically. That must be clear by now.

Now memes. What are they exactly?

I’d like to define it as an idea, a cultural idea to be more precise. This memes are not transmitted by sexual reproduction, as genes, but by exchange of information, being written, talked, and/or seen. Everything that you have been taught in school, at home or in your religious institution, is a meme.

Dawkins says, “Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any one of us is bound to crumble away.” (pg.199) Meaning that even when our genes are constantly trying to move on from generation to generation, the collection of genes will only last one generation. On the other hand, memes, if able to contribute in a big way to the world’s culture, are bound to last much longer than the collection of genes.

This chapter made me go back to my philosophy class where we read Sigmund Freud’s, Civilizations and its Discontents. I found an interesting connection between Freud and Dawkins that helped me understand both texts better. 

Freud, talks about biology and archeology giving an example of all the changes that Rome has gone through. The monuments and constructions are no longer present on their original form,  (the “collection of genes”). Instead, there are reconstructions of reconstructions of the original monument. These reconstructions try to imitate the original constructions demonstrating that the essence, or idea of the original construction (the meme) is present, even when many centuries have gone by and the interpretations have changed and grown apart from the original.

Genes have to face competition in order to survive right? Memes do too. However, now a days memes don’t only have to compete with each other but with the commodities in the external world. The TV, radio, books, are all now competing with the memes. Therefore, in order for a meme to transcend into future generations it must, first, be strong enough to win the attention of the brain winning over its rival memes and commodities, and second be good enough to be passed on not only by one person, but by many people to other brains. 

Teamwork!

Teamwork!

Not really.

Individual self interest really.

It is clear that individual organisms need others, but is it just to individually survive and be able to pass on their genes or do they really care about the others?

As depressing as this might sound, organisms use other organisms form the same species to be able to survive longer. For example animals that live in herds, they do not really care about the companion of each other because they are best friends. No. What is really going on is that they are stuck with the others so they can live longer. They are actually just worried about their self-benefit but in order to benefit they must give in a little too. However, when it comes to danger and when these animals know that one of the herd will possibly die, they have to options: send the alarm call or apply Zahavi’s theory.
Zahavi’s theory states that for example in gazelles, the signal or alarm call is intended to the predators. When danger and death are inevitable they will do anything, even put in risk their herd members life, so they will survive. No matter how selfish it might be.
So, when you see animals working together they are not actually working together. They are just using each other for their individual gain.

Sad huh? Not really. You do the exact same thing.

Two things I can say about this, first, humans are not the only selfish species, second, it is in our genes to be selfish. The most selfish organism is the one who will survive and we all want to survive really, so we have too. We have no other option, and neither the animals that constantly have to face their predators. For example, when Dawkins sets the case of the birds and the parasite. Bird A helps Bird B take the tick off, but when Bird A goes to Bird B for help Bird B just slacks off. Who gains the most from this? Bird B obviously. Bird B won the benefits without paying the costs.

Even when species have to do symbiosis, so they can live longer.  They have to partner up with another species both contribute in some way to become the fittest and survive longer. Even when this may sound like working together and teamwork it really isn’t. They are doing what ever they can to survive even when they have to collaborate with another one it just on their best individual interest.