30 novels, day 20: Invisible
Cities, by Italo Calvino
I’ve carried a copy of this book with me on almost every trip I’ve
taken as a writer. Why? Several reasons. First of all, when I go on trips I
always like to have a book with me that I’ve already read and know well. I like
to visit new places but I’m not good at the actual traveling part, especially
when I travel alone. I get anxious in airports and homesick in hotel rooms.
Having a familiar, loved book with me helps keep me connected with the world
I’ve left behind. And this is a slim book -- easy to carry. Before the invention of the e-book reader, on which I can stow hundreds of novels that weigh nothing at all, I had to be careful how much reading material I brought with me.
But why this slim little volume in particular? In the novel, Marco Polo has traveled
all the way to China from Venice to meet the emperor, Kublai Khan. If Polo was
able to make those epic journeys, most on foot (or by horse or camel) I figure
I should be able to survive the rigors of modern air travel.
In Calvino’s novel (if it is a novel), the young Venetian
describes for the great Khan the wondrous cities he’s visited in his travels. Most
of the book consists of these brief, poetic, fantastical descriptions of
impossible cities. It was thanks to this book that I conceived the idea of
writing a collection of descriptions of imaginary, impossible books, which
eventually became my short fiction collection The Logogryph.
And, lastly, I take Calvino’s book with me on my journeys as a
writer because, for me, Calvino is the consummate writer: his inventiveness,
his ability to transform the mundane and familiar into the wondrous and
strange, is an ideal I strive for in my own work. Having some Calvino with me on
a journey reminds me to pay attention and keep my mind open to whatever comes.
I brought a copy of Invisible
Cities with me when I went to China in 2002 as a member of a delegation of
Canadian writers. The guide assigned to look after us during our stay, the
gracious, unflappable, and ever-punctual Mr Niu, had never heard of Calvino or this
book (set in a fairy-tale version of his own country).
When we were at the
Ningbo airport, about to head home for Canada, I thought I should give Mr Niu a
parting gift, but it was too late to buy anything. Then I remembered he was a
writer of travel essays as well as a guide. I gave him my copy of Invisible Cities.
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