Advancement is shown through the city of Fedora. It has numerous plans of how make it the ideal city of its time, but because advancement in all aspects of life is as inevitable as time, the improvements are obsolete when they are in the midst of production and construction (Calvino 32-33). The city of Fedora explains Calvino 's motivation to write about fictional places: to maintain the book 's accuracy against time and progress. When Marco Polo/Calvino begins to name real cities that are famously known around the world presently, he does not go into exquisite detail of the buildings or behavior of people. A brief description of the characteristics of streets in New York City is given, and slight mention of the skyscrapers as "towers of glass
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The short descriptions of cities, like the points or dots in pointillism, rely on the mind to form an impression from them. When one examines the dots closely, each section in each chapter, they appear independent from each other, yet annoyingly similar, having no relation, but not enough uncommon characteristics to remember each one. But if one were able to step away to a fair distance to see all the dots and have read every bit, then one would see and understand the full meaning of each piece separately, and as a whole. In the discussion between Polo and the Khan it is possible for the reader to glean a few significant thoughts. Still the cities add a richness and depth to the dialogue, filling up the mental image with specific images that fill the background, putting the points that could be initially and easily overlooked into the foreground and highlighting them. Each attempt made by the Khan to place each destination into a category in which he felt it fit a certain criteria, would be smudging together every individual stroke, every point Calvino through Marco Polo sought to make. The conversation of the ruler and merchant, coming from different cultures and not knowing how to speak the other 's language, is gestural until Polo learns the Tartar language, and even so they would switch back to their gestural language because each found it more satisfying (Calvino 38). These gestures and, as previously mentioned, use of objects as symbols to communicate represent the use of the cities ' descriptions beyond than for the benefit of the Khan; they are seemingly inferior to specific words and directly expressive phrases, but effective nonetheless. It is when Marco Polo becomes more proficient in the Tartar language does communication become more difficult because he it is not his native
The short descriptions of cities, like the points or dots in pointillism, rely on the mind to form an impression from them. When one examines the dots closely, each section in each chapter, they appear independent from each other, yet annoyingly similar, having no relation, but not enough uncommon characteristics to remember each one. But if one were able to step away to a fair distance to see all the dots and have read every bit, then one would see and understand the full meaning of each piece separately, and as a whole. In the discussion between Polo and the Khan it is possible for the reader to glean a few significant thoughts. Still the cities add a richness and depth to the dialogue, filling up the mental image with specific images that fill the background, putting the points that could be initially and easily overlooked into the foreground and highlighting them. Each attempt made by the Khan to place each destination into a category in which he felt it fit a certain criteria, would be smudging together every individual stroke, every point Calvino through Marco Polo sought to make. The conversation of the ruler and merchant, coming from different cultures and not knowing how to speak the other 's language, is gestural until Polo learns the Tartar language, and even so they would switch back to their gestural language because each found it more satisfying (Calvino 38). These gestures and, as previously mentioned, use of objects as symbols to communicate represent the use of the cities ' descriptions beyond than for the benefit of the Khan; they are seemingly inferior to specific words and directly expressive phrases, but effective nonetheless. It is when Marco Polo becomes more proficient in the Tartar language does communication become more difficult because he it is not his native