Denouement

It has come to an end. Though it opened up many doors to questions. Finishing Invisible Cities I learned what Calvino really meant to write. Concentrating more on Marco Polo's and Kublai Khan's dialogue, Calvino tried to explain to us the readers how each city is represented by his memories as we try to figure the meanings behind it. We find out that all the cities are made up of Marco Polo's hometown of Venice,

which represents his old life. Each time Khan asks about the cities and its importance, Polo shows how each representation depends on each person. Throughout the book though, Calvino shows what todays society revolves around in Cities and Memories and Cities and Desires. We can see the evidence of religion, consumerism, jealousy and conflicts among the citizens. However, I do not understand the relevance this has with Calvino's interpretation on life. Calvino's use of chess represents the way life takes a turn. There are choices that will influence the decisions you take at the end either winning or loosing.

What really impacted me was the ending. "The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."(165). Calvino describes that the inferno is our everyday lives. After looking at Khan's atlas we look for every possible city there is in our imagination but the final place is where we were all along, in Dante's Inferno. We just need to use our imagination to find the perfect city even though it will never happen.