Ben Eastin

Upon first reading through Invisible Cities, you may be surprised you by what you see. If

you are not expecting the many separated stories, the names and descriptions of the obviously

fantastical and imagined cities may look to you like more of a reference for what to name your

next daughter rather than descriptions of inhabited municipalities. Of course, the context for

these cities comes from an ever developing but just as fantastic conversation between Kublai

Khan and Marco Polo. The reader is able to follow along these two as their relationship

develops and the journeys Marco Polo experiences are increasingly defined through

conversations between the two men. Throughout the book this provides an important

backdrop to what is being described to you; However, this backdrop is being raised as the

reader just begins the story so that they are left without a clear context until midway through

the story. The eventual understanding of these cities as each describing Marco Polo’s home

town of Venice helps to bring together the disparate descriptions of cities from throughout the

kingdom of the Great Khan and provides a connection between the different types of cities

described. Out of all of the types of cities Marco Polo addresses through his stories, the Thin

Cities best encompass the city which he seeks to describe. The five cities described as Thin

Cities come together form a modern representation of the old Mediterranean economic power

center Venice, a city set on pilings amidst a lagoon that is slowly watching it’s own demise as

rising waters threaten to swallow it up.

One of the most distinctive features of Venice is its location amid a lagoon. The entire

time I was in Venice I was trying to answer the question of why people would decide to build up

a city on a plot of land without dry land. This unorthodox choice is a defining characteristic of
Venice that has set it apart from many cities in its own time and from the cities built today. The

first three Thin Cities, Isaura, Zenobia, and Armilla, build the setting of Venice for the reader.

Venice has an intimate relationship to the water surrounding it, not only from its position as a

port city but also in moving about the city locally. Transportation of everything from goods to

people is done largely through the system of canals and waterways that snake below the

streets and bridges of the city. Isaura too is set above a lake and this relationship pervades into

society, but here it is not seen as a relationship of movement as much as a divine relationship.

Maybe this is a different relationship with its water than Venice or maybe it just an extension of

the important and complex relationship that Venice maintains with the water lapping up to it’s

doors. The city in Zenobia seems to present as puzzling of a choice for where it was built as

Venice. Stationed on pilings above a desert floor, the middle of an area devoid of water seems

as nonsensical of a setting to establish your city as the middle of lagoon. Stilts and pilings evoke

an idea of the city similar to that of Venice that has lost all of its water. Similarly, Armilla

establishes a connection to Venice through the fact that it contains only water and baths,

meaning that water is all that it is. These cities alone impart unfinished visions of the city Venice

is, and maybe that is why together they provide the same setting as that of the actual city

Marco Polo is attempting to describe.

Invisible Cities is not simply a look at a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai

Khan as they travel through space, it delves into their views as they look through time as well.

In this way the city of Sophronia is a sign of things to come for Marco Polo’s Venice. A town full

of life and industry some of the year, then left barren and empty when there are no more

people traveling there. Even in today’s Venice you won’t find carnival rides and shooting
galleries, and the buildings standing there today are much as they were hundreds of years ago

when the Doge of the city was able to inhabit the luxurious and imposing palace that still stands

in San Marco’s square. The story told of Sophronia still reminds the reader of Venice in its

description of a town that does not control its own destiny, a town that for many is a

destination for many rather than a home. Today in Venice only around 55,000 people inhabit

the homes above the canals that make the city so famous, and many of the people that work in

the city are forced to live outside of it. The city’s close relationship to water has earned it a

destiny very similar to that of Octavia. As Marco Polo tells it Octavia, a city suspended between

two mountains, inches closer and closer each day to its demise as the ropes and chains

suspending the city begin to give out. Amid todays growing concern of global warming,

Venetians can simply watch as water begins to flood storefronts and homes. As water levels rise

few places are so immediately impacted as Venice is today. Those that live their know that this

water will eventually remain in their streets indefinitely, but until then they can do no more

than live as it periodically bustles its way into their businesses and lives. The city of Venice is

described by these Sophronia and Octavia in a different time than Marco Polo ever would have

witnessed it, but they prove to be faithful indicators of what the future would hold for the

proud city.

As the old saying goes when beginning a story “The story, all names, characters, and

incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living

or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.” In Invisible

Cities this disclaimer is missing, because each of the fictitious locations described is indeed

meant to resemble a real city and this identification should be heavily inferred. Although each
city is an important part of the story, the Thin Cities are able to succinctly capture the essence

of what he is describing. This group describes not only the location of the city but also the

future of the city through distinct cities that come together to encompass the modern era of

the centuries old city, in this case the cities mean more than the sum of their parts. As I read

this book, it was difficult not feel as though I was reading a guide meant to help me choose the

name for my next daughter based on the characteristics of each city described. Indeed the

name for each city is meant to be a girl’s name, but if your are reading this book looking to pick

out a name from any of the individual groupings, you may as well pick the name of the city from

which all others are derived, Venice.