What if? A question that appears on our daily lives and that
Marco Polo asks himself. “…he could now be in that man´s place, if he had
stopped in time, long ago; or if, long ago, at a crossroads, instead of taking
one road he had taken the opposite one, and after long wandering he had come to
be in the place of that man in that square.” (Pg.29) Our past is what defines
our future and is something that no one can change. I found this dialogue very
interesting because I have always seen Marco´s Polo journey with one mainly
goal: to explorer new lands, but after reading Khan´s questions I realized that
it might be a journey to fix his past.
He starts describing Maurilia as the new city. Everyone has
the chance to look at post cards and determine whether they preferred the old
city from the new one. At the same time it is pointless to ask because the past
has to stay in the past. The narrator also explains how the city changes
without anyone noticing, creating a sense of nostalgia when people look back at
the post cards.
I believe Fedora was going to be the utopian city, the one everyone liked, until it came to be what it is. Before visiting a new place, everyone starts imagining all kind of things: creating their own utopia. Some people are satisfied when they see the reality, while others are let down. It all depends on the imaginary city each person was thinking of. It seems that Zenobia is the perfect society as they state: “But what is certain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines….” (Pg. 35) I also found interesting how he divides the cities into two: the ones that continue to give their forms of desires and the ones that are slowly forgotten. This is one of the biggest obstacles that we have now days. Due to technology we start to develop really fast forgetting about the different cultures and traditions that others have. We are easily influenced by the new inventions that we forget of what we were before.
I believe Fedora was going to be the utopian city, the one everyone liked, until it came to be what it is. Before visiting a new place, everyone starts imagining all kind of things: creating their own utopia. Some people are satisfied when they see the reality, while others are let down. It all depends on the imaginary city each person was thinking of. It seems that Zenobia is the perfect society as they state: “But what is certain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines….” (Pg. 35) I also found interesting how he divides the cities into two: the ones that continue to give their forms of desires and the ones that are slowly forgotten. This is one of the biggest obstacles that we have now days. Due to technology we start to develop really fast forgetting about the different cultures and traditions that others have. We are easily influenced by the new inventions that we forget of what we were before.
As I kept on reading the new cities I realized that it
describes pretty much the cities in which we live now a days: boring, repetitive,
and critical. “…sleep, make tools, cook, accumulate gold, disrobe, reign, sell,
question oracles.” (Pg.34) We start seeing how Khan is only looking to accumulate
wealth, just like now days where everyone wants to be more powerful. On terms
of money and power the societies haven’t change at all. We are in a constant
competition looking for ways to bring others down.
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