Città Invisibili

We find ourselves back to the beginning. Allegory has found its way to ask us to analyze it once more. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is filled with allegories, literal and figurative meanings that are just asking to be found and cracked open. This time they brought a friend along, metaliterature. "Metaliterature: writings about writing; any written discussinganother text."(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/metaliterature)

"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young venetian with greater attention and curiosity that he shows any other messenger or explorer of his."(page 5).
Reading the first page was already a work finding what each character meant in the three literary figures. As a class we found out that Marco Polo represents knowledge and power, Kublai Khan represents Power of the east, both a figurative level. Now, in a metaliterature level Marco Polo is the writer (speaker) and Kublai Khan is the reader (listener). But we missed something, the empire in which both our protagonists live in represents reality in the figurative level an oneself in metaliterature.

So I began with five Cities and Memories, Zaira, Zora, Maurilia, Diomira and Isidora. All cities encrypted into memories with slight effects onto the visitor. Diomira, the city in which leaves the visitor with the memory a better experience from the last visit and envy to those who have already seen such beauty.
Isidora, a city made up of ones dreams of youth that are finally made true when old. Its spial staircase representing life and aging indicate how the old men of the city only live in a memory. "Desires are already memories." (Cities and Memory 2).
Zaira, its descriptions only contains its past. The past carved likes lines on ones hands indicate it is there for a lifetime remembering what it is made of.
Zora, the city in which is full of knowledge but once it is remembered it disappears as it has not present. "But in vain I set out to visit the city: forced to be more easily remembered, Zora has languished, disintegrated, disappeared. The earth has forgotten her." (Cities and Memories 4).
Maurilia, the final memory city is forgotten by what it was before with the only memory contained in postcards. Showing only the beauty of Maurilia on the postcards, the past and the reality are forgotten.  
All five cities have one thing in common, and that is that in all of them memories prevent people from enjoying life.