"Seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno..."

Invisible Cities. Two words that are hard to make sense of when put together, even after reading 165 of a book with this title. Despite this, it is much clearer than it was a week ago, when I was only able to stare at the cover and wonder how cities could be invisible. In Invisible Cities, cities represent aspects of humans and life, as I said in my past blog and Yvette  stated in hers as well. If this is so, then the title would be something along the lines of "Invisible Aspects of Humans and Life" and this could possibly be what Calvino is trying to show. He might be trying to reveal the aspects that so many people aren't aware of or simply ignore.

I have yet to discover or decide if Calvino uses this book as a way of merely revealing different aspects, or of criticizing them as well. Is he referring to the cities as utopias or dystopias? In "Cities & Memory" he does portray citizens as people stuck in the past, ungrateful for what they have and unable to take advantage of the present. In "Cities & Desire" he does the same, except that instead of being too busy reminiscing, people are too busy longing for things they could have, or acquiring new things they will never appreciate.

Throughout his book Calvino also assesses religion, stereotyping, consumerism, and conflicts between people. I take it that he's criticizing all these, since the way he refers to them ins't a glorifying one. When writing about Chloe, for example, a city where nobody speak,s he says "If men and women began to live their ephemeral dreams, every phantom would become a person with whom to begin a story of pursuits, pretenses, misunderstandings, clashes, oppressions, and the carousel of fantasies would stop." (P. 52) I interpret this quote as a way to make fun of society, implying that by just opening our mouths to talk, we begin conflicts. I take this as a satirical way of saying everything would be much better if we just kept quiet, but then again it could be just me. Maybe this is not a dystopia and it's me interpreting it this way. Maybe he is praising it. Or maybe he is only portraying it and that's all.

"You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living."

By now, I believe I am being able to understand Invisible Cities symbolically. However, there's no way of knowing whether what I'm doing is right or wrong. Calvino even says so himself in the dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan: "The connections between one element of the story and another were not always obvious to the emperor; the objects could ave various meanings..." (P. 38) So I have reached the conclusion that the reader's understanding of the book might be psychological, it reflects what might be going on in their head or what they think about a lot. I won't give something a meaning that I never think of in my life, I will give it something that I believe is important, something worth writing of. Because of this, readers won't have the exact same understanding of the book, everyone will get at least one thing different from the rest.

To me, each city symbolizes an aspect of humans and how they live. Aglaura, for example, is a city that represents rumors and stereotype because everybody says the same things about it even when they know it's not true. Eusapia, on the other hand, represents dependence on the past. There is upper Eusapia (with the living) and lower Eusapia (with the dead) and sometimes "there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead" (P. 110) since the living will always mirror the dead. There are many other cities (Beersheba representing greed, Irene representing complexity of people, and Laudomia representing destiny), however the one I found to be a very important reflection of our own is Leonia. This is a city wholly based on consumerism. So they throw things away everyday to make space for even more. Calvino even says "...you begin to wonder if Leonia's true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of new and different things, and not instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurring property." (P. 115) This city seems similar to Anastasia (refer to blog titled "Falsehood is never in words, it is in things."). But not only to this city, though. Isn't it exactly what happens in our world today?

I find it incredible how this is a book open to analysis. There is no single meaning, Calvino allows the reader to interpret it as he desires, and is successful. Marco Polo is supposed to be speaking a different language from the one Kublai Khan does, and since Marco Polo is Calvino in Khan is us, then we are reading in a different language. When I first started reading I found this ridiculous. "He writes in English, we read in English, not much more to it," I thought. But I was wrong; there is so much to it. It's not the words that have a different meaning, it's the symbols. And because we don't know the "language" of symbols, we have to interpret them in any way we can and do our best to understand. It's very difficult, but I believe I might be finally getting this "new language", or so I hope.

"...Limpid and cold in the mirror"

Every book I recall reading has had a plot. I never imagined there could be a book that had no plot, but Invisible Cities demonstrates it's possible. This book has no plot whatsoever, it just describes cities by dividing them into different categories. He is able to concentrate on why every city belongs to the category it's in. However, there's no way that cities won't connect to others, since some categories are so similar. And so I noticed that more than once, categories merge.

In Isidora for example, although it is a city of memories, the man thinks about what he wants. It is the place where desires become memories. Similarly, Zoe is a city where "Thin Cities" merge with desires. There's no better way to put it than the way Calvino did: "Those [cities] that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it."(P. 35) In "Trading cities" Chloe is one where people never speak, only look into each other's eyes, thus connecting "Trading Cities" with "Cities and Eyes." Yet, the theme that is mentioned the most throughout the book is memory. It merges with signs  in Zirma, where it is explained that memory is merely a way to repeat signs so that the city can exist. Later in the book, Euphemia is described as a city where memories are traded, this way combining both of these themes of the book.

It is interesting how Calvino is able to describe everything as if you were there. For example, when describing Euphemia, a place where memories are traded, he tells mostly of what you'd hear if you went there. Then, when writing about Chloe, he describes mostly the people seen there, since nobody speaks, just watches. "A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on her shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling." He never says who these people are, he just describes them physically, allowing the reader to judge on his own. It is through these descriptions that the reader acts as not only the audience, but also as a citizen of every city that is described throughout the book.

"Falsehood is never in words, it is in things."

"Cities and Desire." After reading these three words, I thought the cities in this category would be happy ones, unlike those in "Cities and Memory." I thought they'd be filled with what everyone wanted. But no, I was completely wrong.

In "Cities and Desire" people are not busy enjoying what they want and have, but instead, wishing for a lot more (which is similar to how they were in "Cities and Memory" where they were too busy thinking about what they used to have). This is especially evident in Fedora, where people spend their time at a museum looking at models of what their city could have been like. It is similar in Despina, where people arriving by ship would much rather have been in the desert the entire time, and people who came through the desert would much rather have come by boat. It is not only in this book that people want something different than what they have. It definitely happens in our society all the time. Isn't this what jealousy is?

However, it is not only what others have that we want. We just want more... all the time. "You believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only it's slave," writes Calvino on page 12. How awful to be manipulated this way, right? But it's exactly what happens in our society today. We buy and buy, believing it's the key to happiness. It could even be considered as a kind of competition amongst people, to see who is able to purchase the most items. Some even consider the victor to be the most powerful. Yet, in reality, while we believe we are the winners, we are being manipulated. By buying, we have become the slaves of consumerism, and the real winners are the ones getting us to buy everything. And it's working really well. Most of us are too busy wishing for what we don't have, and just keep on buying thinking our desires can someday be fulfilled.

"Desires are already memories"

Reading a book is simple: you start on the first page and end with the last one. Not too hard, is it? However, the first thing I had to do with Invisible Cities was decide whether I should read it in order, from page one to 165, or in the order of the chapters' titles. I wanted something that would allow me to understand the book better. I was inclined to decide to read it in the order it was written in, but then decided against it. This way I would get a better idea of what each type of cities were like, and how they related. In the end I would connect them on my own.

And so I began with "Cities and Memory." Evidently, they are about memory. All five cities have one thing in common, and that is that in all of them memories prevent people from enjoying life. In Diomira, those who have already experienced something identical to the present, are too caught up thinking about how happy they were last time. In addition, those who haven't already experienced this, are jealous of those who have. Similarly, Zaira is a city based on only memories. "As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands." (Page 10) It is a city in which everything has to do with the past; it basically is its past. Zora, another one of these cities, is so caught up in being a memory, it ends up being in the past instead f the present, and everyone forgets it.

In Maurilia, Calvino addresses cities in the past versus cities in the present. He criticizes how citizens idealize the past, and live wishing for a place they never knew. However, this place they long for was actually not how they picture it. Calvino proves it by saying "Admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compare to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old post cards, whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one's eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged." (Page 30) With "postcards" Calvino is probably referring to the elders. They usually talk about the "olden days," which they believe were much better. However, they are probably glorifying the past without even realizing by just showing the good things, just like postcards do.

Isidora is a very similar place. A man spends a lot of time in the "wild regions," which most likely stand for the young years of his life, and then comes to this city. It has spiral staircases with spiral seashells, which symbolize the cycle of life, strengthening the aspect of aging. This city is everything the old man has ever wanted. Well, it's everything he's wished for, except that now he's old. So what does he do instead of enjoying everything? He sits and watches the young go by, making his life a memory instead of a reality.

With these five cities, Calvino is portraying nostalgia and aging. He criticizes how people are too caught up thinking about what other have and about that their past, that they forget to enjoy what they have right then. And it's absolutely true. Little kids spend their youth pretending they're adults and wishing to be as big as their parents. Yet, once we've grown up, we spend a lot of time reminiscing the past. So we never take full advantage and value what we have right now, we're to busy being melancholic about the past and (even though Calvino hasn't mentioned this) worried about the future.

"Blind faith can justify anything."

Technology has become increasingly important in our society throughout the years. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins demonstrates his open-mindedness by saying that technology and other cultural aspects like religion, fashion, architecture, art, etc. can be considered to evolve. Again, a pattern in this book appears: How mistakes make something new. Dawkins explains that it is only through mistakes that new "memes" (see below for definition) are created. For example, in birds, when a tune is misconstructed, a new one is created.

Another pattern is also portrayed once again: Competition. He in a way implies that the only way for a meme to survive is through survival of the fittest. In other words, it must get rid of competition - or at least minimize it - in order to become popular and prevail through generations. For example, if a religion is to last, it must reduce the amount of people who believe in others. It could be said, that different religions are rivals of each other,  and so are different styles of architecture, different types of art, etc.

I'm not the only one who decides to use the example of definition, though. Dawkins does as well, and it seems like he criticizes it at every chance he gets. Out of all the examples he could use - fashion, art, music, architecture, technology - the one he uses the most is religion. And not to boast about it, or even favor it in any way. It could be even be said that he mocks it. He portrays God as something that would die out easily if it weren't for popular belief in him (which could be said to be true, but still adds to his criticism) when he says "God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or ineffective power, in the environment provided by human culture." (P. 193) Not only is he attacking religion but also presenting God merely as man's fictitious creation.

It doesn't stop here, though. Afterwards, to show how memes help each other to propagate themselves, he doesn't use inventions or anything of the sort; he uses religion again. He uses one of the church's most criticized aspects: How it utilizes fear to control the people. Then he explains that the idea of hell and the "God meme" help each other prevail. He describes this technique as "nasty", and then considers whether it could have been a psychological technique arranged by priests, but then decides they couldn't be "that clever."

He does this one last time. He uses the example of celibacy and describes a priest trying to convince young kids to follow this idea. However, he  doesn't just say children, but a"young boys who have not yet decided what they want to with their lives." (P. 198) This implies that the children are still very young and maybe even quite naïve, leading the reader to agree that the priest is manipulating the children since they don't know much about what everything is like. They would probably come to regret their decision later, but the priest has earned followers for the celibacy meme, and that is what every meme wants: More followers than the rest.

Vocabulary

Cultural mutations (P. 190): The rearrangement of a cultural aspect.

Meme (P. 192): A replicator of human culture.

Psychological appeal (P. 193): Appeal to brains.

Imitation (P. 194): "How memes can replicate." (P. 194)

Idea-meme (P. 196): "An entity that is capable of being transmitted from one brain to another." (P. 196)

“You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours.”

For a long time, humans have observed that animals live in groups: Wolfs in packs, fish in schools, birds in flocks, etc. However, I used to believe they did this just for the sake of it, or even simply to have company (as naïve as that may sound). However, Dawkins explain that animals do not live in groups just because, there is a whole bigger reason, and this can be traced to nothing else but selfishness. When they are surrounded by many of the same species, animals are less likely to be eaten, thus allowing them to propagate their own genes.

Although Dawkins avoids using human beings as models, his own examples clearly demonstrate that humans are no exceptions. True, I do not hang out friends to make sure they protect me from harm, and this is probably because society has managed to protect us and removed many of or primitive habits. But still, it hasn’t eliminated our instincts and there are both subconscious and conscious things that humans do, that can be traced back to selfishness.

For example, most people I know dislike being left to sit on the corner in places like the cinema. I had never asked myself why, but this is probably due to an instinctive feeling of vulnerability we dot give much thought to.  Perhaps this makes us feel more prone to danger without even realizing. Similarly, a friend once told me that many people subconsciously sit facing the door because their instincts want them to be on the look out, and this certainly applies to Dawkins theory. If they had their back to the door, any threat could approach without them noticing, so their primordial instincts lead them directly to a seat facing the door (I’m not saying it applies to all cases, but it does apply to many).

Just like there are ways in which we subconsciously want people around us to protect us, there are also ways that we are fully aware of. For example, people feel safer when walking on the street when another person is with them. However, many have probably not stopped to think that if they were attacked in any way, let’s say mugged, their companion would have no way of protecting them. It’s almost as if they were alone, yet we feel safer with someone by our side. Maybe deep, deep down, very subconsciously, we are hoping that they’ll be attacked instead of us, just like animals do…?

There are also bodyguards, who are hired to protect a person who is more prone to danger. However, these bodyguards are also selfish and won’t do it just for the sake of it. In exchange for protecting a person, they receive money, which Dawkins acknowledges as a “formal token of delayed reciprocal altruism.” (Page 188) So even though many people believe we are the exception to animal savagery and primordial instinctiveness, we are not. We might even be more similar to animals than we initially though.

Vocabulary

Reciprocal altruism (P. 166): Doing a favor to another, expecting to later benefit from this.

Selfish herd (P. 167):  A herd of selfish individuals

Cave Theory (P. 169): The theory that an animal of a certain species warns others about a danger for the purely selfish reason of avoiding others from catching the predator’s eye.

Never Break Ranks Theory (P. 169): The theory that an animal warns others of the same species about a danger to avoid being left as the only one and thus losing the advantage of living in a group.

Symbiosis (P. 181): Also known as mutualism, this is the “relationship of mutual benefit between members of different species.”

Sucker (P. 184): An animal that helps another even if the other won’t help in return, “indiscriminate altruists.”

Cheat (P. 184): “Gain benefits without paying the costs.”

Grudger (P. 185): Only help those who help them in return.

Evolutionary Stable Strategy (P. 185): A strategy that is prone to defeat others and evolve.