Zirma, Marco suggests, exists because people repeat their memories of it over and over again in their minds. Several cities, like Zirma and Procopia, change depending on how a person remembers them. The novel is clear about the fact that, as far as Marco Polo is concerned, everything from cities to objects exists because of memories. As a travel novel of sorts, even if that travel takes place only in the characters’ imaginations, Invisible Cities pays close attention to the ways in which travel and experiencing new things influence how a person sees the world, ultimately suggesting that a person’s perception of their surroundings is subjective and individualized, informed entirely by their memories, perspective, and experiences-in Marco’s case, his memories of Venice. However, Kublai begins to suspect that Marco is making his cities up and indeed, Marco reveals midway through that he’s speaking always and only of his home of Venice-the cities he describes to Kublai are, as the novel’s title suggests, entirely imaginary.
Over the course of the novel, Marco leaves to travel the empire and returns to tell Kublai about different cities in the empire, all of which are named after different women. Invisible Cities is structured as a fictional conversation between the real-life historical figures Marco Polo, a Venetian tradesman, and Kublai Khan, the emperor of the Mongol Empire.
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