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doormatt's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jayseewhy's review against another edition
5.0
Italo Calvino depicts here a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan where Polo regales Kublai with stories of the cities within his falling empire. Descriptions for the cities range from deeply thought-provoking, to witty and humours, to surreal and fantastic.
I was expecting to find the book to be an esoteric bore but found it to be as engaging and perhaps as entertaining as Calvino’s “If on a Winter’s night a traveller.”
I was expecting to find the book to be an esoteric bore but found it to be as engaging and perhaps as entertaining as Calvino’s “If on a Winter’s night a traveller.”
daneelolivaw67's review against another edition
2.0
Strano, parecchio, non ho capito il significato di questo "romanzo".
call_it_kizmet's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
laurabadara's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
I am clearly in the minority but I hated this- barely finished it. It's way too pretentious for me. I can't read an entire book where there is zero plot, only these "deep" metaphors- I just can't do it.
coletteharris's review against another edition
Not going to rate this one because it was //so not for me// that I cannot give it an unbiased view
tired_maia's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
tregina's review against another edition
5.0
Upon reaching the end of this book I am left with the thought, "Now what was it really about?" An oral atlas of unknown urban spaces, it is made up of wisdom and imagination and mystery and fragments of the known world, of philosophical ideas and questions about the nature of reality. Are they fantasies? Are they metaphors? Is the dreaming and telling of the travels the most important thing? Or, ultimately, is it all about this:
“I speak and speak,” Marco says, “but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. The description of the world to which you lend a benevolent ear is one thing; the description that will go the rounds of the groups of stevedores and gondoliers on the street outside my house the day of my return is another; and yet another, that which I might dictate late in life, if I were taken prisoner by Genoese pirates and put in irons in the same cell with a writer of adventure stories. It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear."
“I speak and speak,” Marco says, “but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. The description of the world to which you lend a benevolent ear is one thing; the description that will go the rounds of the groups of stevedores and gondoliers on the street outside my house the day of my return is another; and yet another, that which I might dictate late in life, if I were taken prisoner by Genoese pirates and put in irons in the same cell with a writer of adventure stories. It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear."
itsyeboy's review
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5