“It was reduced to a square of planed wood: nothingness…” (pg 123)

As I continue to read Invisible Cities, I continue to find symbols of the world, or life itself. As I mentioned in my previous blog entries, I believe that the city of Venice is meant to represent not only Marco Polo’s hometown, it represents life itself, and all the cities described in the book are the different perceptions or opinions people with different outlook might have regarding it.

The mountain if trash in Letonia, “the city that refashions itself every day” (pg 114) represents all the memories we build up during our lifetimes. The fact that it takes one simple object to fall in order to make the mountains of rubbish crumbles signifies the precarious instability of life, and how we don’t know when or how our lives are going to change, whether it be for better or for worse.  

The game of chess described by Calvino as representing each city is not only that, it is also an allegory for all the decisions we might have to take; how we may win or lose those things that are important to us, but if we lose that one value or principle that makes us different from everyone else around us, we lose the game of life.

“Each game ends in a gain or a loss: but of what?” (pg 123). I can interpret this quote in two ways. One can see it as those risks we chose to take in life and the way we are rewarded for each, or one can interpret it by saying that each game here represents knowledge, and the question at the end is actually asking what the real importance of knowledge is. Why bother reading this complex book? To understand life better, but what will that give us? We will all end up dying eventually so what is the point?

This makes me question if Calvino, after all the analysis he made upon society and its ways, actually has a negative view on life, just like the one expressed by Shakespeare in Macbeth.