Jessica Gelt, "The Industry starts label, to hold free concert at Union Station", Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2014. This strict adherence to a mathematical pattern is characteristic of the Oulipo literary group to which Calvino belonged. At a 1983 conference held at Columbia University, Calvino himself stated that there is no definite end to Invisible Cities because "this book was made as a polyhedron, and it has conclusions everywhere, written along all of its edges. Mark Swed, "Review: An inward tour through 'Invisible Cities'", Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2013. In this site-specific production directed by Yuval Sharon, the performers, including eleven musicians, eight singers, and eight dancers, were located in (or moved through) different parts of the train station, while the station remained open and operating as usual.

Un imperatore melanconico, un Kublai Khan che dopo aver conquistato il mondo ha perso ogni speranza di salvarlo dal suo lento sfacelo, ascolta dalla voce di un Marco Polo visionario le descrizioni di citta misteriose" (dalla sovraccoperta). A. Dance Project are presenting 'Invisible Cities' on a unique platform — Union Station train terminal — and beaming it through headphones. This, of course, confuses Kublai Khan ( Ma le città visitate da Marco Polo erano sempre diverse da quelle pensate dall’imperatore. Penso d'aver scritto qualcosa come un ultimo poema d'amore alle città, nel momento in cui diventa sempre più difficile viverle come città.

The book has nine chapters, but there are also hidden divisions within the book: each of the 55 cities belongs to one of eleven thematic groups (explained below). The original 13th-century travelogue shares with Calvino's novel the brief, often fantastic accounts of the cities Polo claimed to have visited, along with descriptions of the city's inhabitants, notable imports and exports, and stories by Polo about the region. The reader can therefore play with the book's structure, and choose to follow one group or another, rather than reading the book in chronological chapters. Trascurabili segni del tempo alla sovraccoperta (con una piccola mancanza di 1 cm x 1 cm nella parte bassa del retro di sovraccoperta). The majority of the book consists of brief prose poems describing 55 fictitious cities that are narrated by Polo, many of which can be read as commentary on culture, language, time, memory, death, or human experience generally.

In the novel, the reader finds themselves playing a game with the author, wherein they must find the patterns hidden in the book. Envoi autographe signé de l'auteur : "A Maurice Nadeau / hommage amical / de Italo Calvino / mai 74". In each of the nine chapters, there is an opening section and a closing section, narrating dialogues between the Khan and Marco.

Città reali scomposte e trasformate in chiave onirica, e città diaboliche e surreali che diventano archetipi moderni di un testo narrativo altamente poetico. Each one stands on its own, either as a separate city or, more likely, a separate imagined city for, of course, these cities do not correspond to real cities that we know, though attempts have been made to relate them to a specific physical environment. Invisible Cities is an example of Calvino's use of combinatory literature, and shows influences of semiotics and structuralism. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file.