The Fragility of Memory

Cities are like dreams,

Everything imaginable can be dreamed,

But every dream conceals a desire. Or a fear.

Cities are the work of the mind, they can't share their first delight more than once,

They only know departures not returns.

Perhaps these cities exist only in the shadow of our lowered eyelids,

Because memory is redundant and nothing but a zodiac of the mind's phantasms.

Contemplating with fascination their own absence, memory's images,

once fixed in words are erased.

When in life the dead outnumbered the living we reconstruct fragments of a fortress of indestructible leftovers.

Swaying through calendars of bygone years, withered flowers, submerging one in its own past.

Objects shifting within a given space,

Leaping from alive to dead less abruptly.

The inferno of the living lives in their past.

Word Puzzle

Here are some vocab words..

1. "A cataclysm will flatten the sordid mountain range, canceling every trace of the metropolis always dressed in new clothes."(116)

Cataclysm: A violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change or a change in earth's crust.

2. "Still, at the zenith of Beersheba there gravitates a celestial body that shines with all the city's riches..."(112)

Zenith: the point on the celestial sphere vertically above a given position or observer or the

 highest point or state; culmination.

3. "Despite its pride in its new wealth, the city, at heart, felt itself incongruous, alien, a usurper."(107)

Incongruous: 1. Lacking in harmony; incompatible: a joke that was incongruous with polite conversation.

2. Not in agreement, as with principles; inconsistent: a plan incongruous with reason.

3. Not in keeping with what is correct, proper, or logical; inappropriate: incongruous behavior.

4. "Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the

foliage" (77)

Foliage: it means leafless branches.

5. "Lares of illustrious, but decaying palaces, full of hauteur, or with Lares from tin shacks, susceptible and distrustful."(79)

Hauteur: haughty (arrogantly superior) manner or spirit; arrogance.

6. "Extendind his beringed hand from beneath the silken canopy of the imperial barge, to point to the bridges arching over the canals" (85)

Barge: ark, or boat.

7. "Bridges and canals, each other different from the others: cambered, covered, on pillars, on barges, suspended, with tracery balustrades." (90)

Cambered: to arch slightly; bend or curve upward in the middle.

Balustrades: a railing with supporting balusters

8. "And what a variety of windows looks down on the streets: mulllioned, moorish, lancet, pointed, surmounted by lunettes or stained-glass roses.."(90)

Mullioned: A vertical member, as of stone or wood, dividing a window or other opening.

9. Moorish: spanish architecture characterized by the horseshoe arch and ornate decoration.

10. Lancet: a tall narrow window set in a lancet arch (narrow and pointed)

11. Lunettes: a small circular or crescent-shaped opening in a vaulted roof.

12. "That I conjured up, through its name: Euphrasia, Odile, Margarita, Getullia." (92)

Conjured: to imagine, picture.

13. "On the dock the sailor who caught the rope and tied it to the bollard resembled a man who had soldiered with me and was dead" (94)

Bollard: a thick post on a ship or wharf, used to secure topes and hawsers.

14. "In a repetition that can be followed throughout the whole woof." (96)

Woof: the textures of a fabric.

Dig a Little Deeper

As I kept reading I realized all the names of the cities are feminine. Why is this? What made Calvino chose those particular names? Is there a meaning behind each name?

Olivia:

Olivia is a biblical name that comes from the olive tree. “The olive tree is a symbol of fruitfulness, beauty and dignity”. http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Olivias. In the book Olivia is describes as  “a city rich in products and in profits” (61). Marco Polo describes it as prosperous “prosperity only by speaking of filigree palace with fringed cushions on the seats by the mullioned windows.” (61) The meaning of the name Olivia perfectly fits the description of the city. Its “free life and refined civilization” (61) make the city seem beautiful and sophisticated. I think this name is given to the city because it describes in a way the greatest attributes the city has.  

Sophronia:

 The origin of the name  Sophronia is greek, it means wise, prudent and self-controlled. http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Sophronia.html. In the book this city is made up of “two half-cities” (63). The cities are organized and divided in a particular way. In one half of the city is like a circus, representing the wild side. The other half has the bank, the school and everything that is indispensable in a society to keep it organized. “one of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary… take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-city”(63). One half of the city is just like a circus it is temporary and once the “sojourn” is over the circus moves away into another city. I think Calvino chose this particular name because the city is divided in a way that it can be controlled. It is organized and that is one of the words that define Sophronia the name.   

Eutropia:

Eutropia has an old Greek origin as well, but the meaning of it is well mannered and fair. http://www.babynamespedia.com/meaning/Eutropia. In the chapter about Eutropia Calvino mentions Mercury, a mythological character also known as the god of trade and travel. The city of Eutropia was known for its inhabitants, which moved whenever their life got monotonous and they became weary. I can’t find a connection between the description of the city and the name of it but ill think about it for future blogs.

Zemrude: I couldn’t find the meaning of this name. The city on the other hand does have a meaning, the beauty of the city lies on the eyes of the beholder. According to your mood and to your vision the city will be either beautiful or horrendous.

Aglaura: I couldn’t find the meaning of this name either, but the city is a colorless city. I think the cities and names are the cities in which there is no language or words are insufficient to describe the city. 

Cities and...

Why are the cities classified with those titles? From what I've seen each title represents criticism of society and what humanity has become.

The book criticizes how people are never satisfied with what they have, so they either pretend they have it or "the traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have " (29).  People are never happy. They may have all the money in the world or all they always desired but they still want more. It happens in all aspects of life, not only with material belongings but with literally genetic belongings. It’s sad to see how unthankful people are and how the world has become a place where desire goes beyond necessity. 

Cities and desires:

"In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making it the ideal city.." (32) People are not pleased with what they have, most people are seeking their utopia, but does it exist?  Cities and desires remind me of the song imagine by John Lenon. People always desire to find a perfect world. The ideal world varies according to the perceptive of what the ideal life is for people. Unfortunately we have grown with the mentality that perfection is tangible and achievable when in reality it is not. We think perfection is attainable and therefore become lost in dreams that reflect our deepest desires.

Cities and memories:

I think the cities in these chapters are indirectly criticizing how people live in regrets. People are always thinking about the possible outcomes of their actions and once they make one decision they go back to the past and try to decipher what could have happened if they had gone the other way. People have a plethora of images from the past. We are constantly trying to recreate those images to keep the memory vivid. The truth is that our memory distorts the reality and may keep us with remorse.

Trading Cities:

The purpose of these cities in the book is to evaluate how society has become so superficial. Communications between people has become shallow. People are so concerned about their past they stop living their present and forget about their future. They leave people and thing from their present behind and get lost in their memory. Most of our society today is so self centered that they only think about themselves and they don't "trade" anything useful the worlds traded are plain and meaningless.

Cities and Signs:

“Each man bears in his mind a city made only of differences, a city without figures, without form, and the individual cities fill it up.” (34) Each city has different signs and characteristics that make it unique, but people always want what the others have. The image of perfection comes from trends. What seems perfect today will definitely not be perfect tomorrow or might have not been perfect in the past. The cities in Cities and Signs are trying to show how people create their destiny. They create and mold their past and their present according to what they want.

Thin Cities:

“Years and changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.” (35) People are doomed to temptation. Changes come with time and with both discontent and contentment. Unhappiness reins the world because no one is satisfied with what they have. People always want more. What thin cities talk about or criticize is how people always want what their “neighbor has”, people are in a way in scaffolds or in “platforms and balconies placed on stilts at various heights, crossing one another” (35) If they take the wrong step they fall, and people are so scared of falling that they dream about change but never take the risk to make it happen. Thin Cities show the fear and the desire people have. Which weighs more?

“With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear” (44)

Calvino's Imagination

       Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, is a book about Marco Polo’s voyages and Kublai Khan the Mongolian emperor and grandson of Genghis Khan. The plot of the book is what is italicized. The rest of the chapters are like short stories. They don’t seem to relate, they are short, concise and very detailed.

Before starting the book I became a detective. I was trying to decipher the meaning  the pattern of chapters had, looking for a clue word I guess that would make the book meaningful. I wrote down on a piece of paper each chapter’s title: Cities and Memories, Cities and Desires, Cities and Signs, and finally Thin Cities. I listed the name of the city in each chapter and the number of the chapter. I thought maybe D.I.Z.Z D.A.D T.Z. I. (initials of the city names) would actually mean something. I realized it meant nothing. But then I thought… Why were the chapters arranged in that particular order? Does it mean anything?

I usually never read the summary in the back of a book so that I don’t ruin the story. This time I did. I just felt it would help me understand. Before, I asked myself: what does the author mean by INVISIBLE? My first assumption was that by invisible the author meant imaginary, nonexistent. As I read the summary I was surprised with something I read. "Soon it becomes clear that each of these fantastic places is really the same place". How could this be possible? All the descriptions of the cities are completely different, they even have different names. Then I realized maybe my inference was true. Maybe these cities are imaginary. While I was reading the pages we had to I found evidence to support my idea.

“Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.” (19)

        By this the author means that memory is not needed because it only reproduces images and symbols from the past. This is evidence that by invisible Calvino means imaginary. Memory keeps images alive but it also creates and distorts reality. While you may try to remember something exactly as it is, the recreation is not exact therefore you are imagining and inventing things that aren’t actually what the place or object is like in reality. Unless you have a photographic memory it’s not possible to recreate something by memory exactly as it is.     

“Perhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms.” (22)

        This is another piece of evidence. The zodiac is based on imaginary stars that “affect” your behavior and your character, it is not real but people believe in it. When Calvino uses this phrase he is saying that Kublai thought that the empire was just pure imagination, it was a recreation of the mind. What the travelers told him about their journeys was a false creation, was based on useless memory, it was not real.

Vocabulary: Phantasms: something that you imagine you see but that is not real.