Polo's Elemental Cities

It is important to know about the historical background of the characters in the story because it helps us understand Calvino's ideas in a more complex way. In Invisible Cities, Calvino explains Marco Polo's and Kublai Khan's relationship during the Middle Ages.

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a very important Venetian merchant who worked for the Mongol Prince, Kublai Khan. He received him with all his family. The prince felt really impressed by their knowledge and intelligence of the world, reason by which he kept them for various years. This is just basic information that is important to know when reading the book.                 I remember the first time we read it and no one really understood the first chapter that mentioned these two people. Now that I know what was their relationship was, now everything makes sense.

Polo travels to these "Invisible Cities" and comes back to the Empire to tell the prince about his discoveries and interpretations about each city. Since Polo describes him so many cities, his interpretations vary. "Kublai Khan had noticed that Marco Polo's cities resembled one another, as if the passage from one to another involved not a journey, but a change of elements." (43) There's two really important things about this quote: First, the way Polo describes the cities, and second the similarities all of these cities have in common. With Polo's factual descriptions, Khan feels that he is not hearing a journey of experiences, but of information. With so many descriptions about elements and objects, Khan mixes up all of these descriptions among these cities. 

Kublai Khan

"But what enhanced  for Kublai every event or piece of news reported by his inarticulate informer was the space that remained around it, a void not filled with words. The descriptions of the cities Marco Polo visited had this virtue: you could wonder through them in thought, become lost, stop and enjoy the cool air, or run off." (38) Off course this is not a virtue, the narrator is just making fun of Polo's inarticulate descriptions. Something really important as well is understanding the humor used behind the text. If we as readers, understand this humor, the purpose of the book is even more clear and evident.

"As time went by, words began to replace objects and gestures in Marco's tales: first examinations, isolated nouns, dry verbs, then phrases, ramified and leafy discourses, metaphors and tropes. The foreigner had learned to speak the emperor's language or the emperor to understand the language of the foreigner." (38) Although Polo's descriptions are not as deep, Khan gets used to them. This is a very good example of our culture. We adapt to things that are impossible not to get used to. This is the case of many foreigners that come to Colombia, leaving back their old ideas replacing them by new ones. In most cases, foreigners adapt to the country, but in others they don't. I've seen a lot of foreign students from the school that still haven't adapted to our culture. Instead, in the case of many American teachers from school, I can see that it is easier for them to adapt to the country because they chose to start a new life here.

Polo's and Khan's relationship is still evolving, they are understanding each other better and they are getting used to each other. We know that they both interpret the cities in different ways, but we still have to see what they will finally conclude of all these cities. Do they all share a similar concept? Are they divided among desires and aversion? All of these questions will have their answer as soon as we finish reading this book.