Name: Le città invisibili
ISBN: 9780099429838

Le città invisibili

"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 than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating fine details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take.

What Hacker News says

mdp2021Jun 2023

I submit this article as this public may be interested in the proposed «brainteaser[s]»,

and as of course Italo Calvino's Le città invisibili (in the list) we consider pretty much mandated for proper intellectual development -

but I got intrigued, especially relevant to this public, by the summary of Elizabeth Tan's Rubik:

> One night, Elena Rubik ... gets hit by a car and dies. Even in death, Elena’s presence is felt via her social-media profiles, her fan fiction, and the other detritus of her online life - and her existence reverberates across Rubik’s interconnected stories. These all take place within the same universe, which is basically ours except that the behemoths of Apple, Google, and Amazon are all replaced by Seed, a tech corporation with brilliant guerrilla-marketing schemes and questionable motives. Seed features heavily within the plot; so do characters that reappear, sometimes changing drastically, as well as pop-culture elements and fandoms unique to the Rubik world. The sections seem disconnected and random at first, but as you begin to put together the pieces, you’ll find a dark aura rippling through the book

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mdp2021Mar 2022

Gödel, Escher, Bach is an artistic appetizer over the stimulating world of structures, - not a manual.

They young mind is opened by being shown relations it did not yet see.

Read the extreme in that direction:

Italo Calvino - Le città invisibili

(which not only masterfully connects ideas, but most of the realm of existence and experience) - you should be able to see that principle at its apex. And there is no technical teaching: just an education to see the subtle.

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bjowenFeb 2022

Since someone’s done Hofstadter — Italo Calvino Le Città Invisibili or Invisible Cities. It’s a novel about complexity and civilisation and the difficulty and intangibility of memories, history and storytelling. It’s told in a series of 55 miniatures, each about a city that reveals some aspect of human experience. It’s like nothing else and utterly brilliant.

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mdp2021Oct 2023

Very great initiative.

I would add the year of composition in the list: 'Oct 10, Tacciono i boschi e i fiumi (1591), by Torquato Tasso'

The voice is quite good.

How will we submit requests?

Today (15 Oct 2023) is the centenary of the birth of Italo Calvino. You could have added "Le città e la memoria 1. [Diomira]", the proper opening, from "Le città invisibili".

> Partendosi di là e andando tre giornate verso levante, l’uomo si trova a Diomira, città con sessanta cupole d’argento, statue in bronzo di tutti gli dei, vie lastricate in stagno, un teatro di cristallo, un gallo d’oro che canta ogni mattina su una torre. Tutte queste bellezze il viaggiatore già conosce per averle viste anche in altre città. Ma la proprietà di questa è che chi vi arriva una sera di settembre, quando le giornate s’accorciano e le lampade multicolori s’accendono tutte insieme sulle porte delle friggitorie, e da una terrazza una voce di donna grida: uh!, gli viene da invidiare quelli che ora pensano d’aver già vissuto una sera uguale a questa e d’esser stati quella volta felici.

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