Ever since I first read it in college, I've cited Invisible Cities as my favorite fiction book. As highly rated as it is, I still think its philosophical depth

Ever since I first read it in college, I've cited Invisible Cities as my favorite fiction book. As highly rated as it is, I still think its philosophical depth is underrated. In particular, I think it holds wisdom for how to live in this age. Everyone says, to the point of cliche, that institutions and information can't be trusted; all is uncertain; all is illusion; distrust sources. But this is no answer, in itself, for how to live. Instead, I often think of the last paragraph of Invisible Cities: "The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”