Italo Calvino wrote about "invisible cities"; places that weren't real, but that represented each problem existing in a city as an entirely separate urban scape--vices, passions and thoughts. If I could write in this way about St Andrews I think I might also be able to come up with many invisible cities: of course, aspiring to write like Calvino is rather unrealistic.
But I wish Calvino were still alive and could embark on this project: representing all the eccentricities of St Andrews as different cities. I'd be curious to know what he would name each of them. I imagine there would be a city of confusion, with a very obscure name, where all the inhabitants are really young and look lost all the time--they enjoy being at the BOP and eating kebabs at three in the morning. There might be a city of indecision, where academic supervisors are completely useless and people never know what subject to pick for the next semester. There would be cities of success and failure, and clarity as well, cities of nostalgia and regret. I picture all these places as multicultural and lively, where creativity and diversity thrive, where arrogance always loiters in a corner.
What would the cities look like? There would definitely be long beaches on all of them--some with stormy seas, others with quiet sunrises, painting the horizon with all different kinds of red and pink colours. People would all be used to running on the sand and finding its grains stuck in between their toes. There would be old castles that only appear after nightfall, and a cemetery where people take books to read and talk very softly. There would be a library, a nice one, made of stone and medieval secrets.
It would always be windy in some of them, and the curtains inside the houses would dance to the rhythm of the draft coming in through old windows. The sun would also shine in other places, especially in April, when all the students are gone on break. It would rain inexplicably in some cities: thin rain that soaks people to the bone, horizontal rain that people can't defend themselves from, rain that turns streets into a palette of grey watercolours.
Some cities would be built for parties only and, despite the cold, every girl would be elegantly (or nor so elegantly) dressed in colourful ball gowns. Other towns would be built to have conversations in, and the sound of kettles boiling would be the only other murmur perceivable above the voices of the people talking. Vanity would be the capital of one of these metropolises, a place where images of luxury, beauty and happiness would be fabricated and renewed each year. There would be a city for heartbreak, one for art and music, and a city of friendship--that would be my favourite place to be in.
It would always be windy in some of them, and the curtains inside the houses would dance to the rhythm of the draft coming in through old windows. The sun would also shine in other places, especially in April, when all the students are gone on break. It would rain inexplicably in some cities: thin rain that soaks people to the bone, horizontal rain that people can't defend themselves from, rain that turns streets into a palette of grey watercolours.
Some cities would be built for parties only and, despite the cold, every girl would be elegantly (or nor so elegantly) dressed in colourful ball gowns. Other towns would be built to have conversations in, and the sound of kettles boiling would be the only other murmur perceivable above the voices of the people talking. Vanity would be the capital of one of these metropolises, a place where images of luxury, beauty and happiness would be fabricated and renewed each year. There would be a city for heartbreak, one for art and music, and a city of friendship--that would be my favourite place to be in.
And there would also be a city of learning: but maybe this is what St Andrews is already.
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