Point of View

Invisible Cities is unique in that the point of view shifts throughout the novel. It begins with an omniscient narrator describing Kublai Khan having a conversation with Marco Polo. The omniscient narrator describes the garden, the evening, and the mindset of the emperor. He knows what the emperor is thinking and whether or not the emperor is voicing his thoughts.

When Polo is sharing his travels with the emperor he becomes the narrator. The point of view slips between Polo's first person point of view and him telling it in the third person. This stylistic choice sets a surreal tone for the entire novel. The shifts in point of view emphasize how important perspective and impression are in the stories Polo shares with Khan. The reader is presented with Polo's impressions while he describes cities that most likely did not exist as part of the Mongolian...