Curls, Coils and Curves: Spirals

            I was once confortable analyzing symbolism. However, I didn't know Italo Calvino. Only having begun the first section from the book Invisible Cities, I have not only felt stupefied by the overwhelming metaphors and analogies, but completely confused on what Calvino is truly intending to say. I focused on extracting key terms from each chapter and began to find the "hidden meaning" within these. I didn't only discover their was a pattern, but that every object and it's symbol can be connected to other symbols throughout the book. For instance, spirals, metals, musical instruments playing (violin), clocks, cocks, women (dancing-music), old men and astrolabes are constantly mentioned throughout every chapter. As well as the conjunctions and use of time (past, present, and future). 

             Spirals can represent a spiritual journey: an evolutionary process of learning and growing spiritually. This can be a clue to finding the significance of Invisible cities. Marco Polo is narrating his spiritual encounters. Then again, a spiral may signify: redundancy. In others words, repetition, but every time seen with different perspectives. In addition, spirals are what conforms the DNA structure of the helix. (This structure can be explained in Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene) Nevertheless, spirals, time (past, present, future, clocks, redundancy, etc...) and the constant appearance of old men have led me to one theory. Marco Polo's journey to the cities are not necessarily visits, but life chapters. This explorer might be narrating his life experiences when witnessing them in distinct ages of his life. This might explain the old men and the young men observing the cities in benches. This might also explain the clocks. 


"The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between measurements of its space and the events of its past..." (Cities & Memory-3) 


"Zora's secret lies in the way your gaze runs over patterns following one another as in a musical score where a note can be altered or displaced." 


"...he remembers the order by which the copper clock..." (Cities and Memories-4) 

            Perspectives: another aspect found in spirals. While reading "Cities & Desire –3" the idea of two paths, two perspectives, but one destination really caught my attention. 

"Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts." (Cities & Desire–3)


          Although the ship and the camel were both going to Despina, both had contrasting view points. The camel could only see skyscrapers and a raging metropolis, unalike the ship who only saw the "oases of fresh water in the palm trees' jagged shade...." (pg.18) 


"Zora's secret lies in the way your gaze runs over patterns following one another as in a musical score where a note can be altered or displaced."


          Zora and its patterns denote the conception of history, the past and what will be the future has happened before. The famous aphorism: "Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it." (George Santayana) reminds me of the spiral as well. Clocks, patterns, and signs are elements that define a spiral. They are repetitive, redundant, and synchronized, just like life. 


"The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind." (Zirma–Cities & Signs 2) 


         Calvino might be trying to say that "life will hand you lemons until you finally learn to make lemonade." In other words, the situations will be brought up until managed or dealt with correctly.




SPIRALS: they are the structure of life. From our birth, life turns, and death, the cycle repeats. From history, which might present itself within different perspectives, moments and people, but results are the same. Spirals are in our DNA. We are doomed to take its twists and turns. We are obligated to become the spirals. To live by their law. (Cities & Desires–2)