Depressing

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. Don't be fooled by the delightful cover.

Invisible Cities

Another great read from my awesome book club: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Truth be told, I've had a number of Calvino books gathering dust on my bookshelves for years. It all started with If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, which I picked up roughly a decade ago and got stalled on about the fifth page. After that, there were gifts of Calvino, I tried If On A Winter's Night at least another couple of times, but to no avail. In fact, until a couple of weeks ago, there were at least five Calvino books in my/my husband's possession, neither of us had read any of them, and they did not include Invisible Cities, so I had to purchase another Calvino for book club. ARG! However, I'm really happy I did, and I'm glad my book club ladies provided me with the motivation to get through the first several pages.

Now how about I discuss the book? It's a series of vignettes about fantastical cities that Marco Polo tells to the emperor Kublai Khan. There is no plot, not a whole lot of character development - so why did I like it?? The vignettes themselves are quite lovely and often depressing in their resemblance to real life. The tone is pretty heavy, philosophical. It took me exactly 91 pages to really get into in. It was the chapter "Cities & Eyes 4" that really drew me in. This vignette describes a city that appears wonderful and unique to a newcomer but grows dull and monotonous over time; only the travelers appreciate the city because they are the only ones who actually look around them. Okay, writing it out, it sounds a bit trite - but the vignette itself is quite moving. It was the first one to really resonate with me, and then I loved all the rest. Basically, it was a lot like reading poetry - only easier because there was some kind of a story/structure -- also there were full sentences!