But it is also possible that Calvino is mixing historical details in order to comment indirectly on 20th-century social and economic issues. His taste for confusing variety is very much in evidence in "Invisible Cities," where 13th-century explorer Marco Polo describes skyscrapers, airports, and other technological developments from the modern era. Italian author Italo Calvino (1923–1985) began his career as a writer of realistic stories, then developed an elaborate and intentionally disorienting manner of writing that borrows from canonical Western literature, from folklore, and from popular modern forms such as mystery novels and comic strips. As Kublai speculates, "perhaps this dialogue of ours is taking place between two beggars named Kublai Khan and Marco Polo as they sift through a rubbish heap, piling up rusted flotsam, scraps of cloth, wastepaper, while drunk on the few sips of bad wine, they see all the treasure of the East shine around them" (104). Calvino scholar Peter Washington maintains that "Invisible Cities" is "impossible to classify in formal terms." But the novel can be loosely described as an exploration-sometimes playful, sometimes melancholy-of the powers of the imagination, of the fate of human culture, and of the elusive nature of storytelling itself. ![]() And even though some of the cities that Polo evokes for the aging Kublai are futuristic communities or physical impossibilities, it is equally difficult to argue that "Invisible Cities" is a typical work of fantasy, science fiction, or even magical realism. Although Calvino uses historical personages for his main characters, this dreamlike novel does not really belong to the historical fiction genre.
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