Aug 2, 1992 - This quest is inextricably linked to the search for ... writing, begins to apprehend something much more significant: not ... London : Seeker &.
ISSN 0258-2279
LITE RA T O R 13
No. 2
Aug. 1992
Rita Wilson
City and labyrinth: Theme and variation in Calvino and Duranti’s cityscapes I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London) ... I saw all the m irrors on earth and none of them reflected me. (J.L. Borges - TheAleph)
A bstract
For a number o f Italian writers the modem city has come to mean as much a style, a fractured syntax, a paratactic sign-system, as a physical construct with certain demonstrable boundaries. In the works of such authors as halo Calvino and Francesca Duranti the crisis o f reason is symbolized by indeterminate aleatory structures - such as the labyrinth or the chessboard - all o f which can be considered variations on the theme o f the modem city. Calvino and Duranti’s invisible or labyrinthine cities serve as an infinitely malleable poetic dramatization o f the mind. The cities are both projections o f their respective narrators and images that shape the reader's experience. By analysing the spatial structures o f the narratives and by examining the use o f space as a locus o f fantasy this article shows how these novels chart cityscapes o f the mind.
1. Introduction W hen studying the city we confront problem s o f language as well as o f m ethodology. O ur p erceptions o f the urb an landscape are inseparable from the w ords we use to describe them a n d fro m th e a c tiv itie s o f r e a d in g , n a m in g a n d m e ta p h o riz in g t h a t m a k e a ll o u r fo rm u la tio n s p o ssib le . As th e c o n c e p tio n o f th e city as a p hysical e n tity has g radually yielded to o n e based o n in tangible re lationships, m any trad itio n a l disciplines have had to m ake ro o m fo r th e city as a su b to p ic o f in creasin g im p o rta n c e (cf. a m o n g o th e rs K evin Lynch, 1960; S harpe & W allock, 1987; T im m s & Kelley, 1985).
1.1 Cities as a mental topography C itie s a r e p o ssib ly th e la rg e st a n d m o st social o f h u m a n c o n stru c ts a n d a re e ffic ie n t sym bols for c re a tin g a kind o f m en ta l topography. T hey a re highly visual, they a re large and co n cre te , so th a t we m ay m ove w ithin them ; they seem to c o m p re h e n d the w hole of hum an experience in encyclopaedic fashion, and they e n te r into a d ialectic with hum anity: p e o p le sh a p e cities, a n d c ities sh a p e p e o p le . It is n o t su rp risin g th a t o n e o f th e re ce n t
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dom inant metaphors of our culture is that of ‘world-become-city’. If the G reeks perceived the cosmos as an immensely expanded polis, and medieval man saw it as a feudal m anor enlarged to infinity, we experience the universe as the city of m an. It is a field of human exploration and endeavour from which the gods have fled. The world has becom e man’s task and m an’s responsibility. Contem porary man has become the cosmopolitan. (Cox, 1966:1.)
W riting at the tu rn of the century G eorg Sim m el (1969), am ong others, theorized ab o u t the im pact o f the u rb a n e n v iro n m en t u p o n p a tte rn s o f hu m an asso ciatio n and consciousness. F o r Sim m el the u rb a n experience b re d am ong city dw ellers a c h a ra c te r th a t w as rational, im personal, a lienated, unem otional and a u to n o m o u s.1 Follow ing Sim m el, R o b e rt P ark felt th a t th e city was som ething m ore th an "congeries o f individual m en and social convenien ces" (P a rk & B urgess, 1967:3). R a th e r it w as a "state o f m ind, a body o f cu sto m s and trad itio n s, and o f th e o rganized a ttitu d e s and sen tim en ts th a t inhere in these custom s and a re tra n s m itte d w ith trad itio n " (P a rk & B urgess, 1967:4). T h u s th e city w as n o t sim ply d e fin e d as a sp a tia l-d is trib u tiv e p a tte rn b u t also as p o ssessin g a ‘m o ra l o r d e r ’. P ark s argued th a t the physical and m oral organizations a re m utually in te rd e p e n d e n t and interact in such a way as to m ould and m odify one another. In expanding his definitio n of the city to include th e presence o f "an u rb a n sta te of mind", P a rk has m uch in com m on w ith artists inspired by th e a tm o sp h e re o f th e m o d ern m e tro polis. In painting, lite ratu re and, to a certain extent cinem a, the id ea o f the m odern city is o ften difficult to se p a ra te from th e physical change, social turm oil, psychological trau m a a n d in te lle c tu a l fe rm e n t b o u n d u p w ith th e id e a o f m o d e rn ism in g e n e ra l. M alcolm B radbury re la te s the co n ce p t of a rtistic m o d ern ism to th e u rb a n e n v iro n m en t in w hich it to o k sh ap e. T h e city not only m o u ld s a rtistic e x p ressio n b u t a lm o st p a ra lle ls it: "... the cu ltu ral chaos bred by th e populous, ever-grow ing city, a con tingent and polyglot tow er of B abel, is enacted in sim ilar chaos, contingency, and plurality in the texts o f m o d ern writing, the design and form o f m odernist painting" (B radbury & M cF arlane, 1976:96, 98-99). T he city is the locus of m odernism and each aspect of city life seem s to g e n e ra te or de m o n stra te a c h ara c te ristic of this a rtistic m o v em e n t - m u ltiplicity o f m eaning, loss o f se q u e n tial or causal connection, breakdow n o f signification, and dissolution o f com m unity.
12 Cities in narrative In its re p re s e n ta tio n s o f th e city, n a r ra tiv e lit e r a t u r e fin d s its e lf in a n in c re a s in g ly p aradoxical situ atio n . N arrativ e fiction is for the re a d e r a te m p o ra l m ed iu m w hich m ust crea te the illusion o f events happening in space. It also, how ever, d ep en d s on a succession of spatial scenes to give the n arrative the illusion o f the passage o f tim e. T h e im age o f the city in a lite ra ry w o rk o c cu p ies a sin g u la r p o sitio n . S ince its c o n c e p tu a l as w ell as its em pirical referent is a physical object in space, the word-city is an inherently spatial image. Y e t its a sso c ia tio n w ith sp a tia lity c o n flic ts in m o d e rn lite r a tu r e w ith th e d o m in a tin g c o n v e n tio n o f tim e . T h u s m any c itie s in c o n te m p o ra ry lite ra tu r e a re e th e r e a liz e d o r d is e m b o d ie d . In th is w ay th e ir s p a tia l p r e s e n c e is re d u c e d so th a t th e y a p p e a r as d e p e n d e n c ie s o f tim e . T h e se ‘se m i-tra n s p a re n t’ c ities a re o v e rtly fa n ta sie s r a th e r th an toponym ical re p re se n tatio n s of real places. Simmel also points out that while the m etropolis might lead to the corruption of ‘m ental life', it might also serve as a site of hum an em ancipation. (See his essay "The M etropolis and M ental Life” in Sennett, 1969).
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F o r a n u m b e r o f Ita lia n w rite rs th e m o d e rn city h a s co m e to m e a n as m u ch a style, a fractu red syntax, a p a ratac tic sign-system, as a physical construct with certain dem onstrable b o u n d a rie s.2 In th e w orks o f Ita lo C alvino an d , m o re re ce n tly , F ra n c e sc a D u ra n ti, the crisis o f reason is sym bolized by ind eterm in ate aleatory stru ctures - such as the labyrinth or th e c h e s sb o a rd - w hich can b e c o n sid e re d v a ria tio n s on th e th e m e o f th e m o d e rn city. Calvino and D u ra n ti’s invisible or labyrinthine cities serve as an infinitely m alleable poetic dram atizatio n o f the m ind. T h e cities a re b oth projections of th eir respective n a rra to rs and im ages th a t sh ap e the re a d e r’s experience.
2. F antasy as m en tal topography: Italo C alvino’s Invisible Cities Calvino (1987:53), in particular, is fascinated by the topos o f the city: ... the way is still open for a study of the symbol city from the Industrial Revolution on, as a projection of the terrors and desires of contemporary man. Frye tells us that the city is the human equivalent of the mineral world, in its apocalyptic or paradisiacal aspects (City of God, Jerusalem , soaring architec ture, seat of the king and the court) or in its demonic and infernal aspects (City of Dis, City of Cain, labyrinth, modern metropolis).
A s its title im p lie s, his L e c ittá invisibili (1 9 7 2 ) ta k e s as its im m e d ia te r e fe r e n t the a rc h ite c tu ra l im age o f cities, cities w ith nam es th a t a re d iffe re n tia te d according to th eir arch ite c tu re and the social practices w hich th at a rch itectu re facilitates. It m atters less th at C a lv in o ’s c ities a re m e n ta l c o n stru cts a n d th e re fo re ‘in v isib le ’ th a n th a t th ey c re a te a fascin atio n w ith the discoveries they e n g en d e r.3 C alvino’s cities a re no dou b t a m etap h o r for lite ra tu re ; they a re th e in n er landscapes o f de sire a n d fantasy, a n d a t th e sam e tim e they a re concretized in m aterial structures and endow ed w ith m eanings.
2.1 Spatial stru c tu re o f C alvino’s cityscapes C alvino’s stru ctu re is very rigid, as if to create an abstract, spatial org an izatio n for the g reat c o n ce p tu a l fre e d o m o f th e fantasy. A n e x am in atio n o f th e sp a tia l stru c tu re o f th e book re v ea ls so m e in te re stin g facts a b o u t C alvino’s cityscapes. T h e b o o k is divided in to nine s e c tio n s ; e a c h o p e n s a n d c lo s e s w ith a p o r tio n o f th e f ra m e s to ry p r e s e n tin g th e co n v ersatio n b etw ee n K ublai K han and M arco Polo.4 T h e bulk of each section is a set of d e sc rip tio n s o f c ities. S e c tio n s 1 and 9 have th e fra m e plus 10 c ities e a c h ; sectio n s 2
This is true too o f many of the avant-garde movements. Cubism, Futurism , abstract art of many kinds a re all tie d to to an urb an sensibility. T h e g reat m odernists like Picasso, Boccioni, Kandinsky, who were m ore preoccupied with aesthetic than social issues, celebrated the ‘universal dynamism’ o f m odern urban life. (cf. Timms & Kelley, 1985.) In p articu lar M arco Polo’s discovery of new languages contains coherent meanings about real things. In his famous Travels (ca. 1300) M arco Polo described, often in sum ptuous detail, m any of the cities he had visited. In Le cittá invisibili M arco Polo has b een making such re p o rts to the em peror o f the T artars, Kublai Khan. Polo’s reports however have shifted from the factual to the fantastic: his c ities a re v erb al c o n stru cts invented to am u se the e m p ero r. T h e capricious categories into which the cities are divided reflect not the places themselves but the imaginer ‘seeing* them as he narrates them.
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th ro u g h 8 have the fram e plus 5 cities each, totallin g 55 cities and 18 fram e pieces.5 As regards the ord er in which the cities a re deployed, th ere is an e la b o ra te counting gam e. In each o f the eleven c ateg o rie s of cities6 th ere a re five cities. T h e cities a re a rra n g e d in a com plex p a tte rn w hich m ain tain s the prin cip les o f fives b oth vertically for each category and horizontally for each section.7 In contrast to the m athem atical strictness o f the presen tatio n , the prose poem s o f the cities them selves are w idely sc a ttere d in all sorts of im plied space. If K ublai K h an and M arco Polo in th eir o rdering are follow ing the rational, the orderly and th e linear, the cities seem to be asso c iatio n al, o rg a n ic and free-fo rm . T h e K h an and P olo a re m en, e m b lem s o f a m ilitary -co m m ercial e m p ire , b u t the cities p a rta k e heavily o f th e fem in in e: all o f th em have w om en’s nam es and are energized largely by fem ale characters. In Jungian term s, the invisible cities could be considered anim a figures p ro jected by the archetypal subconscious ness o f the two m en. T hus the m en find them selves red u ce d to th e re c tilin e a r p a tte rn of the chessboard, but the cities so ar in unlim ited space.
2.2 O n eiric space J o s e p h F ra n k (1 9 6 3 :3 -6 2 ), ta k e s th e K a n tia n c a te g o rie s o f s p a c e a n d tim e as p o la r o p p o sites, and uses the te rm sp a tia l ra th e r in d efin itely to m ean so m e th in g like abstract, atem poral and non-linear .8 H is c o m m en ts help us follow C alvino’s e m p h asis on counting the cities. It is possible th a t this serial p a tte rn in g may be a tem p o ral co u n term o v e to the heavy spatial a rra n g e m e n t of th e cities. T h e K han and P olo m ay have b e e n tak e n o u t of o rdinary historical tim e, b u t th e novel, for all its spatiality, signals its own internal tim e by its form al arrangem ents. T h ese cities are ‘invisible’ because they exist only as inventions of th e im ag in atio n o f th e n a rra to r. By this device C alvino u n d e rsc o re s th e fact th a t w ordc ities do not exist in space but in n a rra tiv e tim e. A useful n o tio n in this c o n te x t is th a t im plied by B achelard’s term oneiric space: The space in which we shall spend our nocturnal hours has no perspective, no distance. It is the immediate synthesis of things and ourselves. If we dream o f an object, we enter that object as into a shell. O ur oneiric space always has this coefficient. (Bachelard, 1971:172.)
T h is te rm is a key for a re ad in g o f Invisible Cities: the im plied space o f the cities is only m etaphorically exterior; phenom enologically, it is totally interior, b oth in the projection of 5
These num bers do not seem to have inherent meanings; Calvino has indeed avoided most of the traditional numcrologics. C arter (1987:110) notes that "(f)ive and eleven (...) are sturdy prime numbers; sections 1 and 9 have twice the num ber o f cities o f the others, as if to stand as a solid frame around the smaller sections" but admits to not being able to establish any further symbolic overtones.
6
Cities and memory, cities and desire, citics and signs, thin citics, trading citics, cities and eyes, cities and names, cities and the dead, citics and the sky, continuous citics and hidden citics.
7
F or a d e ta iled discussion of th e c itie s’ layout sec C a rte r (1987:110-112) and his d e ta iled bibliographical note on the other critics who have constructed differing charts when discussing the novel’s spatial qualities (1987:164-165).
8
F rank ’s work and also th at o f B achelard (1969 and 1971:171-175) are particularly useful in a discussion o f c o n te m p o ra ry n o tio n s o f ‘sp atiality ’, in which tim e o p e ra te s as the c u ltu ra l convention dominating our conception of the spatial world.
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it by C alvino th ro u g h the K han and Polo and in the p ercep tion and re cre atio n of it by the reader.
2.3 Spatial imagery A clo ser look a t the sp a tia l im agery m akes for som e suggestive readings. D espina,9 the third city in the group "Cities and desire", illustrates two uses o f space: space and desire and reversible or negative space. T h e cam el driver sees th e city as a ship ab o u t to leave port fo r ro m an tic voyages (p. 17; p. 25). T h e sailor, in c o n trast, sees th e city as a cam el and im agines caravans and o ases and "palaces o f thick, w hite-w ashed walls, tiled courts w here girls a re d an cin g b a refo o t" (p. 18; pp. 25-6). E ach view er p ro jec ts his fa n ta sies on the skyline of the city, perceiving the outline of a ship or a cam el, according to his desires. Like a m irro r th e city reflects th e view er’s de sire and is variable, even reversible, according to the perspective from which it is viewed. T h en com es the twist: "E ach city receives its form from the d e se rt it o pposes; and so the cam el-driver and the sailor see D espina, a b o rd e r city b etw een two deserts" (p. 18; p. 26). B eyond m ere rev ersib ility , an in h e re n t negativity exists in this p ro jec tin g o f desire: the s a ilo r a n d th e c am el d riv e r give form , c re a te th e city b e c a u se o f th e ste rility o f th e ir existence so th a t the city, as c re a te d by them , exists b etw een two deserts. T hus the cam el driver and the sailor seem destined to e n te r a desert on the o th er side o f D espina, a m irage of desire, an em pty fantasy th at will disappoint the desires p rojected upon it. E ach view er "knows it is a city but he thinks o f it as" a vessel or a cam el, suggesting the kinetic nature of desire in fantasy, even w ith an accom panim ent of realistic know ledge.10 D e sp in a will also serve to illustrate som e general ch aracteristics of the poetic descriptions of the cities; all the descriptions a re short, highly evocative in im age and o th er appeals to the senses, b u t at the sam e tim e ab stract in th em atic concerns. T h e descriptions p re sen t a glossy, a ttrac tiv e though difficult style - a style even containing fo rbidding m eanings: they o ften seem like co n u n d ru m s or mystical riddles. T hus the descriptions arouse o u r desires b u t the p hilosophical p roblem s a re raised to acute, insoluble paradoxes. T h e very brevity o f the sk e tch e s re in fo rc es this dissonance. W e a re sed u ced into th e fa n ta stic landscapes only to find ourselves lost and disoriented in a conceptual m aze.
2.4 Calvino’s use of pattern in space All these characteristics raises the question o f C alvino’s use of p a tte rn in sp a c e.11 In effect, with each o f C alvino’s cities we drift into an oneiric state th at illustrates and elicits desire, 5
The nam e Dcspina rem inds us of the flirtatious soubrctte in M ozart’s Cosl fan lultc, with the added analogy o f spina (thorn in Italian), i.e. an attractive but barbed city: 17-18; 25-26. (All page references are from the 1979 Picador edition, followed by the page references from the original Italian version.)
10
O th e r cities which are especially vivid in showing desire in re latio nship to space arc C hloe (Trading cities, 2; pp. 42-43; pp. 57-58); Anastasia, "city of sensuous delights" (Cities and desire, 2; p. 14; p. 20); Fedora (Cities and desire, 4; p. 28; p. 39).
11
In Octavia, "the spider-web city", (Thin cities, 5; p. 61; p. 81. Its name is probably a pun on the eight legs of spiders.) Calvino makes an adroit use of spatial images, mixing moods. O n the one
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b u t th a t usually lim its it by som e so rt o f c o u n te rm o v e m en t. T h re e kinds o f cities seem p a rtic u la rly rich in m ysterious re so n an c e s to m etaphysical p a tte rn s : c ities re la te d to the sky,12 double cities and cities th at refashion them selves. T he reflection betw een heaven and e arth portrayed in the "Cities and the sky" re p resen ts a k ind of p o la rity th a t is fo u n d m o re ex p licitly still in th e d o u b le cities. A tra v e lle r to V a ld ra d a (C itie s a n d eyes, 1; pp. 43-44; p p .59-60) sees tw o c ities built on a lak e, the earthly and the m irror image. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in V aldrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted point by point.
T h e inversion o ften changes value and g enerally seem s to u n se ttle th e in h ab itan ts. This o p tic a l d a m n a tio n locks th e m in a c losed system w h e re b o th fre e d o m a n d privacy are denied, m aking V ald rad a one of the m ost undesirable o f the invisible cities.13 T he m ost com plex sp atial p e rm u tatio n s a re natu rally o ffered by th e cities th a t constantly re c re a te th e m se lv e s .14 B eren ice (H id d e n cities, 5; pp. 124-25; pp. 166-67) synthesizes
hand, the city is a delight of design: it is suspended between two mountains by a net; from this net everything hangs below. Calvino plays a lovely m etaphysical gam e in his catalogue of hanging items: "rope ladders, hammocks, ... baskets on strings, dum bw aiters, ... trapezes and rings for children’s games, cable cars, chandeliers, pots with trailing plants". The reader feels the delight of invention, of unexpected connection, and the playfulness of this grandiose spatial game. But on the other hand: the inhabitants "know the net will only last so long". Calvino has deliberately chosen to m ake this co unterpoint. H e could have chosen to show that the inhabitants, like spiders, renew the net and so shall hang forever but, in th ree brief paragraphs, he establishes a lavish set of images, and two conflicting moods: desire, however concretized and celebrated, has a term inus of death. 12
Eudoxia (Cities and the sky, 1; pp. 76-77; pp.103-4) is the city that resem bles a carpet. An oracle has suggested that the city "has the form the gods gave the starry sky" but "you could, similarly, come to the opposite conclusion: that the true m ap of the universe is the city of Eudoxia". Thekla (Cities and the sky, 3; p. 101; p. 134) is also chaotic, apparently unplanned, certainly unfinished; it takes the stars for a blueprint.
13
In contrast to V aldrada, the two halves of the delightful Sophronia (Thin cities, 4; p. 52; p. 69) form a harmonious and symbiotic whole. There is the circus half and the business half, and one of these is dism antled periodically and taken away on lour. Calvino’s joke is quickly apparent: it is the business half which goes on tour. O f interest to the re a d er is the effect of variations and surprises found in the perm utations of spatial arrangem ents rather than them atic conclusions. At least six other cities can be described as ‘double’: M aurilia (Cities and memory, 5, p. 27; pp. 378) exists in the present and, via post cards, in the past. Zem rude (Cities and eyes, 2; p. 54; p. 72) has an upper and lower side; B eersheba (C ities and the sky, 2; pp. 89-90, pp. 117-18) has a co rre sp o n d in g heavenly city; and M a ro /ja (H id d e n cities, 3; pp. 119-120, pp. 160-61) is simultaneously two cities - that of the rat and that of the swallow. Eusapia (Cities and the dead, 3; pp. 88-89; pp. 115-16) houses all its dead in an identical city constructed beneath the ground. Laudomia (Cities and the dead, 5; pp. 111-13; pp. 147-49) is a double city of life and death.
14
C larice (C ities and nam es, 4; pp. 86-7; 112-12) keeps recreating itself on the sam e site, while Ersilia (T rading cities, 4; p. 61-2; p. 82) moves as soon as it becom es too crow ded with the strings that the inhabitants stretch betw een houses to show relationships. Lconia (C ontinuous cities, 1; pp. 91*2, pp. 119-20) refashions itself in the sense that it recycles its materials; sending the old Lconia (garbage) out into the countryside.
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c o n ce p tu a l p e rm u ta tio n : a ju st city is hid d en w ithin an u njust city. B ut the seed of still a n o th e r u n ju st city is h id d e n in th e ju s t city, so th a t "the re a l B e re n ic e is a te m p o ra l succession o f d ifferent cities". B erenice is the last city depicted in the book, and the closing lin e s o f its d e s c rip tio n o ffe r so m e th in g o f th e p o te n tia l th a t a ll th e c itie s h a v e b e e n exploring: "all the future B erenices are already p re sen t in this instant, w rapped one within the oth er, confined, cram m ed, inextricable" (p. 125). T h e re is no global m ap of C alvino’s cities, only a sh eaf of insets in an atlas w hose o rd e r is e ith e r unknow n or fanciful. T h e w orld in w hich they a re located has a rhizom e structure: th at is, it can be structured but is never structured definitively. T he eighteen sections o f the fram e m erely in tro d u c e and re fle ct upon the descriptions o f th e cities and th e K han and P o lo a re lik e d is e m b o d ie d o ra c le s , w h o se c o n v e rs a tio n s a r e h ig h ly s e lf-c o n s c io u s discussions o f w hat the book is about. T he m ajor them es o f the fram e can b e identified as follow s: p a tte rn s (especially o f d e sire) w ithin th e vast range o f m a te ria l d eca d en c e and conceptual possibility, the evocation of language beyond itself, and th e participative nature o f in te rp re ta tio n , by w hich we ourselves b eco m e em blem s, a t a level m o re a b stra c t and hypothetical th an the level of fact. Im ages o f the atlas and the chessboard are used to sum m arize and conclude the fram e s.15 T h e chessboard can be considered an em blem of cities em phasizing p a tte rn and space, the a tla s is an em b lem re p re se n tin g o th e r p a tte rn s and w orlds. T h e tw o final p o rtio n s o f the fram e to section 9 discuss an atlas which lists all possible cities. T h is a tla s is m agic in its detail and in its p ro p h e tic ability, describing cities not yet found. T h e atlas ends a t a point beyond form : th e d e ath of the city by urb an sprawl, form less and cancerous. T h e atlas (pp. 106-9; pp. 126-27) a lso d e sc rib e s u to p ia s and dystopias, cities o f p u re d e sire a n d fear, archetypal cities o f B ach elard ’s oneiric space. W e are left, with the feeling th a t th e p a tte rn is "so su b tle it co u ld e sc ap e th e te rm ite s ’ gnaw ing" (p. 10) is p e rh a p s to o su b tle o r too m ultiform for us to find.
3. The city as labyrinth T h e ‘a b sen t stru c tu re ’ in C alvino’s novel is th at of the city as labyrinth. C alvino’s cities may p ro v id e a ‘to p o g ra p h y o f d e s ir e ’ b u t th e ir com p lex lay -o u t also se e m s to em b o d y the ab stract m odel o f conjecturality p ostulated by U m b erto E co (1989:57-58): 15
The initial somewhat latent images of the chessboard expand to a controlling m etaphor in the opening and closing frames of section 8 (pp. 96-7, 104; pp. 127-29, 139-40). T he Khan hopes to discover an order to his empire: If each city is like a gam e o f chess, the day when I have learned the rules, I shall finally possess my empire, even if I shall never succeed in knowing all the cities it contains (p. 96; p. 127). Then the trope is reversed: instead of reducing the cities to a chessboard, the two men attem pt to use the chcssboard to imply or create cities. M arco needs travel no m ore, and they sit, playing chess, Kublai looking all the while for an ultim ate pattern but finding that all the em pire "was reduced to a square of planed wood; nothingness ..." (p. 104) This final paragraph is repeated at the opening o f the next bit of frame, the one completing section 8, suggesting that all the citics of sectio n 8 w ere p ro je c te d from the ch essb o ard . K ublai rem ain s dazed by the co n cep t of nothingness, but Polo takes the chcssboard as a point of dep artu re to talk about "ebony forests, about rafts laden with lo g s ... of docks, of women at the windows" (p. 104; p. 140) as if to give the plenitudinous opposite to the Khan’s reductionist despair.
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An abstract model of conjccturality is the labyrinth. But there are three kinds of labyrinth. O ne is the Greek, the labyrinth of Theseus. This kind does not allow anyone to gel lost: you go in, arrive at the center, and then from the c en ter you reach the exit. T his is why in the center there is the M inotaur; if he w ere not there the story would have no zest, it would be a m ere stroll. T erro r is born, if it is born, from the fact that you do not know where you will arrive or what the M inotaur will do. But if you unravel the classical labyrinth, you find a thread in your hand, the thread of Ariadne. The classical labyrinth is the A riadne’s-thread of itself. Then there is the mannerist maze: if you unravel it, you find in your hands a kind of tree, a structure with roots, with many blind alleys. T here is only one exit, but you can get it wrong. You need an A riadne’s-thread to keep from getting lost. This labyrinth is a model of the trial-and-error process. A nd finally there is a m odel of the net, or rath er what D eleuze and G uattari call "rhizome". The rhizome is so constructed lhat every path can be connected with every other one. It has no center, no periphery, no exit, because it is potentially infinite. The space of conjecture is a rhizome space.
A ccording to E co, this w ould be a d e lib e ra te strategy by C alvino to draw a tte n tio n to the labyrinthine structure of the novel itself. As the city can indeed be considered the locus of m odernism so the labyrinth can be viewed as pre-em inently a sign o f the m odern, probably be ca u se its visual p a tte rn m im ics o u r p re o c c u p a tio n w ith th e dyn am ic c o n fig u ra tio n of u rb a n living space. As ‘a sym bol for th e w o rld ’ the lab y rin th suggests th e ex p erien ce of urban d isorientation within a form al p a tte rn cap tu red in a New Yorker c arto o n depicting "a m inotaur contem plating a subway m ap'' (F aris, 1988:178).16 In its three-dim ensional form , th e m o d e rn la b y rin th e x te n d s th e lexicon o f s c u lp tu ra l d esig n in to th e c o n te m p o ra ry environm ent everyw here. A s E co has p o in te d out, obsessive e x p lo ra tio n o f lab y rin th s m ay b e a sso c ia te d w ith the original structure at Knossos. In fact, this prehistory fram es o u r p ercep tio n o f labyrinthine la n d s c a p e s . T h e cla ssic al d esig n o f th e la b y rin th p ro b a b ly fo rm e d p a r t o f th e city ’s defences, w hereas in our tim e instead o f the castle o r town p ro tec te d by a labyrinth we see the city as labyrinth. T he city as spatial form presents both the im age o f a m ap and the im age of a labyrinth. In Francesca D u ra n ti’s fiction the central labyrinth p a tte rn is not sculptural design so m uch as te x tu a l re in v e n tio n , fo r ''th e la b y rin th s o f th e city a re d u p lic a te d in th e lab y rin th s of lan g u ag e" (F a ris, 1988:181). H e r p ro ta g o n ist is p ro v id ed w ith th e m e a n s to o rie n ta te h e rself spatially: a m ap of the city. H ow ever, no m a tte r w hich way she reads the m ap, or which route she takes, she cannot find the house she is seeking. T his m ap ’s only function is to project the stages o f h er journey in term s o f a tem poral narrative.
3.1
E scape from the labyrinth: F ran cesca D u ra n ti’s Personal Effects
It is th e labyrinthine p a th itself th a t D u ra n ti’s novel, Effetti personali (1988), m im ics in its transform ation of the visual and spatial iconography of the three-dim ensional city-labyrinth into the tem poral and linear design of the text. She em ploys a line o f w riting which mimics the m u lticu rsal p a th s o f th e original design so th a t h e r n a r ra to r /e x p lo r e r e n c o u n te rs "a
16
In this w id e-ranging study F aris discusses a good m any texts w hose a rt is dev o ted to the reconfiguration of the labyrinthine form in the shapes of postm odern fiction.
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landscape that includes both alternatives and entrapm ents ... sim ultaneous confusion and com pulsion" (F aris, 1988:4). A lthough this work may in som e ways be considered a ‘confessional novel’ in that it reconstructs the personal history of the narrator/protagonist, the author also feels impelled to make a story out of a city ... to represent the streets and the various districts as dramatis personae, each one with a character in conflict with every other; to give life to human figures and situations as if they w ere spontaneous growths from the cobblcs of the streets, or else protagonists in such dram atic contrast with them as to cause a whole string o f disasters; to work in such a way that at every changing m om ent the true protagonist was the living city (Calvino, 1987:182).17
D uranti’s enthusiasm is aroused by the topographical epic poem of the city, following her first intuition of the city as language, ideology, as the conditioning factor of every thought and word gesture, the streets that through their ‘physiognomy’ im part certain ideas, the city as m irror image o r as mirage. D uranti’s nameless East E uropean city seems to combine the polarity of Calvino’s double cities with the projection of desire in space. The treatm ent of the exteriors is matched by those of the interiors, luxurious or squalid as they may be. The description of the W riter’s Union and the intricacies of the municipal bureaucracy crowns the whole design. The act of writing is equated to the charting of unknown territories.
3.2 The quest for identity, the search for meaning The protagonist’s quest is to find the best selling author Milos Jarco and to interview him in order to establish just how he manages to maintain a perfect ideological equilibrium in his w riting betw een E ast and W est and how his books have achieved m ajor critical acclaim while being a great commercial success. This quest is inextricably linked to the search for her own identity and for the "via di mezzo" (pp. 22-23,126). T he protagonist’s ex-husband appropriates what rem ains of her identity by removing the brass plate from the front door of their (now her) apartm ent. Thus her nam e no longer names her, is has no solidity. This moment of revelation comes to her early in the novel (p. 9) and h er recognition of herself as a subject inhabited by lack and w ithout ‘personal effects’ acts as the narrative m otor. She em barks on a journey which seeks to fill the absence, the planned interview with the elusive a u th o r rep resen tin g h er only hope of survival by allowing her to keep on writing. T he novel dem ands an interactive reading: through her con fro n tatio n with the bifur cations, im p ed im en ts, c ircu larities and false trails of the city (an d of th e text), the n a rra to r/e x p lo re r (and with her the rea d e r) must choose which p ath (and thus which reading) to pursue. The punto di m ezzo becomes a recurring motif in the novel. The broad, deserted Hapsburg avenue which divides the city in half (pp. 64,77), creating two an tith etical cities, is its
17
This comment on Balzac’s Ferragus by Calvino (1987:182) is also a particularly apt description of D uranti’s novel.
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physical representation. Like Calvino’s lake in the description of V aldrada the street has the disconcerting effect of altering the characters’ spatial perspective (p. 94), depending on which side of the street they are standing, raising complex questions around truth and fa lse h o o d (p p . 104, 166). It se em s as th o u g h th e w o rld ex ists only as artific e , misunderstanding, falsehood. Not only does the distinction betw een fiction and reality become blurred, the author for whom she is searching turns out to be the product of a great literary fraud. T here is no U ltim ate A uthor, only a textual arch itect (p. 150) who has perfected the recipe for writing stories (pp. 139, 151): the perfect "literature machine". Back from her voyage the n arrato r (and the reader), satu rated with em otions and with writing, begins to ap p reh en d som ething much m ore significant: not m erely the accu mulation of obstacles the text has set up against the quest for a meaning, but the fact that the text itself has become both quest and obstruction. The text has first written itself into being through the intervention of the reader, and then has ‘erased ’ itself as p art of the same process.
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A mythology of the metropolis
The strength of the w hole novel is m aintained and condensed by its being based on a mythology of the metropolis. Duranti discovers the city as a den of mysteries, and the sense she keeps ever-alert is that of curiosity. H er n arrato r is always delving into a tangle of things with the air of someone who scents a mystery and promises one. H er judgm ents and observations are those of a suspicious investigator with her hands on a mystery that must at all costs be solved. Unlike Calvino’s potentially infinite labyrinth, D uranti’s city mimics the mannerist maze. Thus the narrator’s m ethod of investigation is one of trial-and-error and her resolution of the mystery coincides with her escape from the labyrinth. Besides providing a model for language, the labyrinth constantly reveals its cultural roots in another ‘postm odernist’ manner. Genealogy insinuates memory and desire into the textual labyrinth: the image ‘rem em bers’ its original values. The labyrinthine pathway is strewn with the ruins of the past, it reconstitutes a textual archaeology o f ‘visual rem inders’ and linguistic echoes. Because of this subtext the literature of the labyrinth recom poses itself continually into "a broad kind of intertextuality, a p artial rewriting of the original myth" (Faris, 1988:201). M oreover, the labyrinth may be read as a sign of language itself and of writing for, in the words of Wendy Faris, it "embodies the sense in which we control and yet are controlled by language, in which we write and are written" (1988:4). This m etalanguage of the lab yrinthine sign suggests th at the p ath o f the labyrinth is necessarily recursive, returning to the controlling original image of Knossos. In the post m odernist text of the labyrinth both T heseus and D aedalus (i.e. both the explorer and creator) are celebrated. TÏie reflexive labyrinth provides "a potent and ubiquitous sign that stands for modern and contemporary fabulation" (Faris, 1988:12). In Calvino and D uranti’s m etanarratives their cities becom e images of "the splintered labyrinth" (Borges) and their characters continue to grapple with the description of "the unim aginable universe".
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4. Bibliography Bachelard, G aston 1969. The Poetics o f Space. Trans. M aria Jolas. Boston : Beacon Press. Bachelard, G aston 1971. The Right to Dream. Trans. J.A. Underwood. New York : Grossman. Bradbury, M. & M cFarlane, J. 1976. Modernism. Harmondsworth : Penguin. Calvino, Italo 1972. L e cittá invisibili. Torino : Einaudi. Calvino, Italo 1979. Invisible Cities. Trans. William Weaver. London : Picadot. Calvino, Italo 1987. The Literature Machine. Trans. P. Creagh. London : Seeker & W arburg. Carter, A.H. 1987. Italo Calvino. Metamorphoses o f Fantasy. Ann Arbor, Michigan : U.M.I. Research Press. Cox, Harvey 1966. The Secular City. New York : The Macmillan Co. D uranti, Francesca 1988. Effettipersonali. Milano : Rizzoli. Eco, U m berto 1989. Reflections on the N am e o f the Rose. Trans. William Weaver. London : Seeker & W arburg. Faris, W.B. 1988. Labyrinths o f Language: Symbolic Landscape and Narrative Design in M odem Fiction. Baltimore : John Hopkins University Press. Frank, Joseph 1963. The Widening Gyre. New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press. Lynch, Kevin The Image o f the City. Cambridge, M ass.: M.I.T. Press. Park, R.E. & Burgess, E.W. 1967(1925). The City. Chicago : H oughton Miffien. Scnnett, R. (cd.) 1969. Classic Essays on the Culture o f Cities. New J e rse y : Englewood Cliffs. Sharpe, W. & Wallock, L. (eds). 1987. Visions o f the Modem City. Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press. Timms, E. & Kelley, D. 1985. The Unreal City. Urban Experience in Modem European Literature and Art. New York : St. M artin’s Press.
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