People, Personalities, and Eusapia

When I first picked up this book, I believed that I would not like it one bit. The dialogues between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo seemed rather tedious, the cities appeared uninteresting and a bit repetitive, and on top of that the overall structure of the book was quite unlike a regular story, much to my dismay. However, once I got used to its organization, I found that I actually enjoyed the novel. The cities seemed to become more and more interesting with each chapter and I began to truly look forward to the conversations between Khan and Polo. I was completely absorbed by their wordless communication and I found delight in the different ways in which Polo continued to describe his stories – through gestures, emblems, and even a game of chess.

A specific part of the book that I found fascinating was how each city is named as though it is a person. Some of the cities have quite strange names, yet they are all names of people nonetheless. In addition, the way that the author defines the cities initially caught my eye because they are described as though they are real people, each with individual personalities. Also, instead of recounting each city by stating its appearances and buildings, Calvino tends to write about the cities mostly by describing either how a traveller views the cities or how the people living there perceive the cities themselves.

One city in particular that continued to stick with me as I read the book was the city of Eusapia (109-110), where below ground there is a city of the dead that completely resembles the living city above ground. I found it interesting how there is an entire city filled with dead people below the city of the living, and how all of the corpses are placed around the lower city in various positions, as if they are life-size toy dolls. For instance, Calvino writes about how “most of the corpses are seated around laden tables, or placed in dancing positions, or made to play little trumpets” (109). However, the part of Eusapia that was most captivating to me was how the city of the living began to change based on the city of the dead. Most importantly, the sentence that I could not shake from my thoughts was that “they say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead” (110). In my mind, the sentence begs this question: is the city of the dead only functioning because of the city of the living, or is it the city of the living that is truly dependent on the city of the dead?