Invisibe Cities List

1. Cities and Memory 1
1. Diomira
2. Seen them also in other cities
3. Repetition
2. Cities and Memory2
1. Isadora
2. Isadora, therefore, is the city of his dreams.
3. Aging
3. Cities and Desire1
1. Dorothea
2. Wheels turned and colored banners fluttered
3. Viewpoints
4. Cities and memory 3
1. Zaira
2. Relationships
3. Interconnectedness
5. Cities & Desire 2
1. Anastasia
2. “you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave”
3. The true nature of desire
6. Cities & Signs 1
1. Tamara
2. The embroidered headband stands for elegance
3. The city is a language
7. Cities and memory 4
1. Zora
2. Languished, disintegrated, disappeared
3. The impossibility of perfection
8. Cities and desire 3
1. Despina
2. A border city between two deserts
3. We see what we want most
9. Cities and signs 2
1. Zirma
2. Redundant
3. How accurate is memory?
10. Thin Cities 1
1. Isaura
2. The gods live in the buckets
3. The divine is created
11. Cities and memory 5
1. Maurilia
2. Nostalgia
3. Change
12. Cities and desire 4
1. Fedora
2. Imagined as possible
3. The importance of imagination
13. Cities and signs 3
1. Zoe
2. Nothing but doubts
3. Confusion
14. Thin cities 2
1. Zenobia
2. Pilings and its suspended stairways
3. The comfort of familiarity
15. Trading cities 1
1. Euphemia
2. The city where memory is traded
3. Stories
16. Cities and desire 5
1. Zobeide
2. The white city, well exposed to the moon
3. Misunderstanding
17. Cities and signs 4
1. Hypatia
2. Signs form a language
3. Mistranslation
18. Thin cities 3
1. Armilla
2. A votive offering to win the favor of the nymphs
3. Secrets
19. Trading cities 2
1. Chloe
2. Twirling a parasol on her shoulder
3. Lonliness
20. Cities and eyes 1
1. Valdrada
2. Limpid and cold in the mirror
3. Propriety
21. Cities and signs 5
1. Olivia
2. Filigree palaces with fringed cushions on the seats by the mullioned windows
3. Interpretation
22. Thin cities 4
1. Sophronia
2. Remove the marble pediments
3. Faulty assumptions
23. Trading cities 3
1. Eutropia
2. Mercury, the god of the fickle, to whom the city of sacred, worked this ambiguous miracle.
3. Monotony
24. Cities and eyes 2
1. Zemrude
2. Your gaze will be held on the ground
3. Points of view determine what we see
25. Cities and names 1
1. Aglaura
2. An array of proverbial virtues, equally proverbial faults, a few eccentricies
3. The difference between what is real and how it is described
26. Thin cities 5
1. Octavia
2. The spider-web city
3. Conviction
27. Trading cities 4
1. Ersilia
2. Relationships seeking a form
3. The importance of the intangible
28. Cities and eyes 3
1. Baucis
2. Flamingo legs
3. Loving something without enjoying it
29. Cities and names 2
1. Leandra
2. The Penates believe they are the city’s soul
3. Is the city the buildings or the people who make it up?
30. Cities and the dead 1
1. Melenia
2. From act to act the dialogue changes
3. Preordination
31. Trading cities 5
1. Esmerelda
2. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a zigzag
3. An overabundance of choices
32. Cities and eyes 4
1. Phyllis
2. The city fades before your eyes
3. The familiar looses its awe
33. Cities and names 3
1. Pyrrha
2. Hidden behind a dune of the low, rolling coast
3. The meaning of a name
34. Cities and the dead 2
1. Adelma
2. An old man was loading a basket of urchins into a cart
3. Memories
35. Cities and the sky 1
1. Eudoxia
2. Eudoxia’s confusion
3. There is no ultimate design
36. Cities and eyes 5
1. Moriana
2. Coral columns supporting pediments encrusted with serpentine
3. Duality
37. Cities and names 4
1. Clarice
2. Compared to which the city’s present state can only cause more sighs at every fading of the stars
3. Reverence for the past
38. Cities and the dead 3
1. Eusapia
2. The living have taken to copying their underground copy
3. Power
39. Cities and the sky 2
1. Beersheba
2. A city which, only when it shits, is not miserly, calculating, greedy.
3. The result of values built around the accumulation of wealth
40. Continuous cities 1
1. Lenia
2. Removing the residue of yesterday’s existence
3. Wastefulness
41. Cities and names 5
1. Irene
2. The pink of the settlement can be discerned spread out in the distance
3. Our relationship with a place defines what that place is
42. Cities and the dead 4
1. Argia
2. Layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds
3. Belief in the unseen
43. Cities and the sky 3
1. Thekla
2. Scaffoldings that embrace other scaffoldings
3. What gives work meaning
44. Continuous cities 2
1. Trude
2. Looking through the same goblets at the same swaying navels
3. Repetition
45. Hidden Cities 1
1. Olinda
2. All the Olindas that have blossomed one from another
3. Revelation of new things
46. Cities and the dead 5
1. Laudomia
2. Families are more and more crowded together, in compartments crammed one above the other
3. Continuity
47. Cities and the sky 4
1. Perinthia
2. Guttural howls are heard from cellars and lofts
3. The divine is not perfect and ordered
48. Continuous cities 3
1. Procopia
2. Round, motionless, entirely flat faces
3. Polite invasions/ overcrowding
49. Hidden Cities 2
1. Raissa
2. A great lady who is in love with an officer
3. Without pain there is no joy
50. Cities and the sky 5
1. Andria
2. The city and the sky never remain the same
3. Stewardship
51. Continuous cities 4
1. Cecilia
2. They are places without leaves, separating one pasture from another
3. Consuming expansion
52. Hidden Cities 3
1. Marozia
2. The second is the one about to free itself from the first
3. Change
53. Continuous cities 5
1. Penthesilea
2. A street of scrawny shops which fades amid patches of leprous countryside
3. Frustration
54. Hidden Cities 4
1. Theodora
2. No other species existed to cast any doubts
3. Loss
55. Hidden Cities 5
1. Bernice
2. And of being more just than many others who call themselves more just than the just
3. Duality

The narrator of this work is mostly Marco Polo, but sometimes the narrator is an unknown contemporary figure describing more modern cities. The historical significance of this is that Marco Polo was a Venetian who traveled to many strange and exotic cities and therefore the book, put in his mouth, can describe innumerable and unusual cities. The author uses this to create his own cities while framing it in a way that the reader can understand, knowing about Marco Polo as a historical and almost legendary figure. However he also uses the unknown contemporary narrator to compare the travels that Marco Polo had to his fantastic cities to something that the modern reader connects to more, allowing the author to point out the similarities between the imagined cities that lend themselves so easily to metaphors and moral lessons and the real cities that we recognize around us every day. The author uses two points of view, the first person (I went to) and the third person (the traveler who goes to). It changes between these two. I think the author uses this technique to allow the reader to place themselves within some of the stories while excluding them from others. The cities described from the first person sound like a closed book, they tell a story of something that has past and will not be again, they describe a moment that was unique to that traveler that cannot be repeated. Yet when the narrator switches to the third person it involves the reader at a whole different level. In hearing that the traveler who goes there does or sees such and such they put themselves into the story. No longer are they hearing about a place that is closed off in memory, they are hearing about a place they can go and interact with. They understand the author’s tone as a promise of experiences that are there, just waiting to be taken advantage of. I think the author switches in such a way to allow the readers to fully appreciate that promise of interaction when it is finally offered.