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    The last review I tried to submit to Vlad was of the book by Italo Calvino alluded to in the title of this essay. Vlad politely reminded me that he already reviewed it in a previous issue. In a mad scramble to redeem my honor after such forgetfulness and stupidity, I found two novels that were similar to Invisible Cities, Calvino's great fantasy of Marco Polo's Thousand and One Nights as told to Ghengis Khan. One-Way and Baudolino create cities that are both livable and yet completely imaginary, and what these fantastic places do to and for, not only their visitors and citizens, but also their believers. Places in our minds and hearts at which we forever want to arrive and will or may never do so.

    The first is the most second-most recent novel by another famous, though still living, Italian author, Umberto Eco. Baudolino tells the tale of a true storyteller. In the beginning of the 13^th century Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, is being sacked by holy warriors of the Fourth Crusade. Baudolino saves a high court official and historian from the pillagers and certain death, and then proceeds to tell him his life's story.

    As a young peasant boy in Northern Italy, he stumbles upon and saves Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, winning him over with his skill of languages and a propensity for telling outrageous, yet quick-witted, lies. The Emperor adopts him and sends him to university in Paris, where he befriends a mandolin-wielding, poetic, "green honey"-stoned Muslim, and a "poet" who has no poetic skills, just obsessive ambition. While Baudolino is rich in intellect, he knows he will be forever impoverished, so he and his companions concoct a mythical Christian utopia based on vague rumors and legend, and ruled by Prester John, a figure as mysterious and fantastic as the utopia itself. Using his carefully crafted lies, Baudolino wins over Frederick and, most importantly, his financial patronage. Along with his friends and some other well-educated miscreants, he sets off on a life's journey that is both as tragic as it is side-splitting; desirably believable and utterly false.