![]() ![]() ![]() If the emperor is in good spirits, Polo warns him being too confident. If the emperor is angry, Polo tries to appease him. Polo tends to weave his stories around the emperor's moods. Polo tries to get Khan to see the empire as whole by describing certain small aspects. Khan is worried that his empire is crumbling or that it is so vast that it will collapse under its own weight. They can sit together in silence and imagine what the other will say in response to a question. The reader sees that there is an understanding between the two men, even when they do not speak the same language. Many times he will refer to a city as though it were a woman. He gives the cities life and literally describes them as beings. Polo weaves poetry into his prose and provides a different way of looking at the cities. The difference is that these are not standard reports. The stories are in essence reports on the cities within the empire. The conversations between Polo and Khan provide a framework for the different stories that Polo tells. Khan does not necessarily believe what Polo tells him of the distant cities. Even though Invisible Cities is a short novel, it provides volumes of information that will stay with the reader for years after he or she has put it away. By the end it becomes clear that each of the wondrous places is the same city. Polo tells of trading cities, hidden cities, cities and the dead, and cities and the sky. As Polo weaves tale after tale of the cities he has visited in Khan's name, it is impossible to tell if the cities actually exist or if they were created from Polo's imagination. He sends for news from his distant holdings and is answered by Marco Polo. The great Kublai Khan sits in his garden, sensing the end of his empire. ![]()
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