Journal Entry 1 by robertdoidge from Walnut, California USA on Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Pre-numbered label used for registration. 

Journal Entry 2 by quinnsmom from Hobe Sound, Florida USA on Wednesday, September 01, 2004

going off to jinnayah, another bookcrosser in MI 

Journal Entry 3 by jinnayah from Ann Arbor, Michigan USA on Saturday, September 18, 2004

Oh, I'm so happy to have this copy! I discovered robertdoidge just before he stopped actively BookCrossing. I was amazed at his release prowess and was very glad that someone could pick up his collection and carry on his work. Thank you to quinnsmom for this RABCK!

And why do I want the book? Frankly, I have dreams of memorizing it. (Hey, I'm only 24--I've got the better part of a century to work on it.) Invisible Cities is an amazing exploration of alien and very familiar lands--the lands of the mind and human nature. I feel it shares with The Twilight Zone a unique perspective: elegant, subtle (or sometimes blunt), and very true to human experience.

More later.

Jinnayah 

Journal Entry 4 by jinnayah from Ann Arbor, Michigan USA on Sunday, November 14, 2004

Euphemia--where memory is traded at every solstice and every equinox

I groom my memories assiduously, taking them out for walks, brushing them down until they shine. I would feel lost without them--no, not lost: trapped. My present is not enough for a life. I require my past to ground my future.

In Euphemia, I would rehearse my stories gratefully before the others, and hear their stories eagerly, seeking to make them my own. Their wolves will not supplant mine. If my sister becomes a different sister, it will not be through discarding the old but incorporating the new. I see my sister in the new light of another's eyes. I see her features overlayed with those of another. I know my story, too, in knowing another's.

I write this and I know I would take part in the exchange, but I would also resist a little. Would I not want still to see my wolf through my own eyes? Would not my original experience seem most salient to me? So I would bring to the trade som eagerness and some apprehension. "Ther is no language without deceit" (48). There is no trade without selfishness. 

Journal Entry 5 by jinnayah from Ann Arbor, Michigan USA on Thursday, June 16, 2005

Eudoxia--All of Eudoxia's confusion, the mules' braying, the lampblack stains, the fish smell is what is evident in the incomplete perspective you grasp; but the carpet proves that there is a point from which the city shows its true proportions, the geometrical scheme implicit in its every, tiniest detail.

--

"You know, in some ways you belong in a Holy Order," said my boyfriend.

I could only respond, "I know!"

And yet that is not what I seek. I crave the contemplative life, the withdrawl from the world into true reality, but I resist the temptation. I think it's what I want, not what God is asking of me. I'm getting a little off topic.

The topic is the tension between ideal worlds that make some semblance of sense, and the life that goes on while we are making other plans. In the ideal there is less of life. Only humans would make that up. God wants an abundance of life in all its messiness and sweat and gore.

My boyfriend disagrees with me on that. He says that the universe should be explicable, should make sense, and that God above all should be consistent. That's not the world I live in. Apparently most Eudoxians take his view. I would want to awaken them out of their fear of the messy.

Because the thing is, that ideal is what Job's friends are arguing for. They say there is a system, they say that Job must have deserved what happened to them. Job demands more and other than "fairness": he demands a personal connection to the divine, someone/something he can identify with. And in the end, who is vindicated? Job, for daring to pose that question. (If you haven't read Job, read it. Three or four times. King James version, the best even if not the most accurate. And please talk to me about it. I promise you you will see the connection to this city of Calvino's.)

I guess Calvino's point is that the world is diverse enough for both viewpoints. The carpet may be the divine plan, or the imperfect human representation. The metaphor works either way, as a good metaphor should.

--

I purged my room last night. I was left with three paper bags full of books to sell or BookCross. I'll do the selling tomorrow and then deluge Ann Arbor with my remainders. This book I intend to offer first on BookRelay, if I can find an appropriate section. I know it's anti-BX, but I cannot bear to give this book to someone who might not journal it. Thanks again for giving Invisible Cities over into my custody.

Jinnayah

 

Journal Entry 6 by jinnayah from Ann Arbor, Michigan USA on Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Journal Entry 7 by yourotherleft from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania USA on Wednesday, July 06, 2005

This came in the mail yesterday. I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks! 

Journal Entry 8 by yourotherleft from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania USA on Friday, October 27, 2006

I wrote a nice and decently sized journal entry for this when I finished reading it, but it appears to be gone. Now the book is on its way to geishabird who got it in the literature in translation swap on BookRelay, so I can't even consult it in an attempt to recreate said journal entry. :(

Anyhow, this was a very fascinating book, and it gave me a lot of food for thought. Calvino captures the basic elements of human nature again and again in his descriptions of the cities as well as in the dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. He makes some very good points such as how the way we view things (cities, for example) is shaped by our past experience or how we, as humans, always seek to control our environment in ways that often backfire...such as creating a city that is always under construction in hopes that it will never fall into ruin or trying to align the city with the patterns of the gods and ending up with a city full of monsters instead of a city that is "blessed." This is just a small portion of the many things Calvino has to say in this book. It is a book that is meant to be read slowly and a book meant to be thought about in depth. I very much enjoyed the concept, though sometimes I wish I had somebody around to tell me what some things were supposed to mean! 

Journal Entry 9 by geishabird from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Saturday, November 04, 2006

Thanks very much. I've had this book on my radar for a while so I'm very pleased to finally have the opportunity to read it. 

Journal Entry 10 by geishabird from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Sunday, January 21, 2007

Understandably a tricky book to make a journal entry for, but I'll try. I enjoyed reading this very much. It's very beautiful and often very wise. I found so much of society's weakness and folly within this book; so much of its sorrow and desperation. I've travelled through so many of these "cities" during my life and I see so many others lurking on the horizon. I'm deeply moved by the yearning and the naive hopefulness that permeates so many of the vignettes, and at the same time very troubled by the signs I see in the world that many of these cities are beginning to populate the landscape...

Very much a timeless piece of writing. Thank you for sharing it. 

Journal Entry 11 by geishabird from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Mailed to bartonz on March 27th by way of the Website Formerly Known As Book Relay...well, not exactly, but sort of...anyway, she's getting it next. :) 

Journal Entry 12 by bartonz from Bellevue, Washington USA on Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Thanks geishabird! I look forward to reading this one :)