For the last 9 months I’ve been eagerly awaiting China Miéville’s The City & the City, ever since I first saw the title pop up on Amazon. Earlier this year I started seeing people add their review copies to their catalogs on LibraryThing, feeling green with envy. (Or perhaps yellow. I’ve never caught an envy so my only clue to it’s color is what other people have written.) I tried several different ways to get a copy, but failed in each. (I don’t request review copies from publishers as a personal policy.) Then Suvudu (an arm of Miéville’s publisher, Random House) had a few contests for copies. I won! I would get my copy before the on sale date! Or I would have had I not been attending Wiscon when the copy arrived. Doh! Denied! Still free copy! Anyhoo, can you tell I’m jazzed about Miéville? I think he’s the only author I fanboy over.
Fanboydom aside, The City & the City is a pretty original though somewhat flawed science fiction police procedural. In a somewhat unusual move, I’ll actually give a rating for this, because I think it will help illustrate how I feel about the book. On the A through F scale, I’d give this a B or B+, not quite as good as Perdido Street Station or Un Lun Dun.
The story follows Tyador Borlú, a police inspector for the eastern European city state, Besźel. Local gutter punks (as we call them in Seattle) find a body in a park, a pretty foreign girl mutilated. Besźel, like other eastern European countries, has myriad less than legal shadowy groups: smugglers, nationalists, gangs of foreigners, and perhaps even the government itself. It appears one or more of these groups are involved.
As in all Miéville novels, the setting is what makes the novel. Besźel comes off kind of dark and somewhat noirish. Ul Qoma, the other city that also figures into the narrative, has a similar feel but is Turkic in flavor rather than Slavic. Despite what you may read, these cities are the most realistic of the cities in any of the author’s novels. There’s no half-human half-beetle inhabitants, nor walking window (or was it picture?) frames. They have more in common with Dashiell Hammett’s cities than with New Crobuzon. I guess the short version of this paragraph is not to expect the wildly fantastic this time around. And no monsters.
I think the key to the success or the failure of the novel for anyone will ride on how effective one finds Tyador Borlú. The perspective is first person. You know what Borlú knows, except that Borlú isn’t talking to the reader in a memoir fashion, explaining his history. More as if he’s talking to a colleague who understands his background. How Besźel’s police and especially it’s politics work is something that Borlú expects you to know. Since Besźel doesn’t actually exist, we’re all foreigners when we read the novel. To be successful, Borlú’s character has to suck the reader in to the story, yet let him remain displaced and the other
long enough to make things interesting. Because frankly, the crime and police procedural aspects of the novel didn’t do a whole lot for me. The setting makes the novel, and Borlú was an excellent tour guide. By the end of the novel, despite the strangeness of the place, Borlú’s point of view was my point of view. That’s good writing.
Anyhow, I do want do write more in depth about the book and some of the things it got me thinking about. But to do that I’ll have to spoil what happens. Do not read page two of this entry until you’ve read the book. Normally I’m of the opinion that a book should be enjoyable even if spoiled, or it’s not really that good. The City & the City probably won’t be as good if you know the ending, which is one of the reasons why I wouldn’t rate it as high as some of his other novels. However, it’s chock full of discussion substance, which is high recommendation on its own right. That part goes on page 2. Since comments still fall on page 1, don’t put spoilers in comment responses. If you want to respond to my spoilers, write it up on your blog and use a pingback or trackback. Again, page 2 has spoilers.
Some other blogged reviews:
- SFReviews.net (contains spoilers)
- Boston Bibliophile
- Punkadiddle (contains spoilers)
- The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review
- Speculative Horizons
- Torque Control (contains spoilers)
Title: The City & The City
Author: China Miéville
Imprint / publisher: Del Rey / Random House
Format: Advance readers copy
Length: 312 p.
Publication date: May 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-49751-2
Subject: Murder — Investigation — Fiction
LC classification: PR6063.I265 C58 2009
Pages: 1 2
I saw that you were reading this and have been anxious to see your review. I’ll be starting it as soon as I finish The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan.
After all the glowing reviews for this book, I thought you may have liked it better. I feel the same way about him as you do. I actually got to meet him a few years ago at Wiscon. He’s a super guy to meet in person and took the time to talk to me for a few minutes.
I didn’t read page two of your review. I’ll wait until I finish. I don’t like spoilers because while I’m reading my mind keeps on wondering, ‘when is it going to happen’. I find it annoying.
Anyway. I look forward to starting it.
I finished reading The City & The City last week. I enjoyed the mental challenge of it, but like you said, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief that these two cultures could really live the way they do. I think the stress/anxiety of constantly “not seeing” things that are all around you would drive people crazy. It was easier for me buy into the story when I imagined that the separation was more metaphysical, that the people and objects in the other city were more like shadows that could be seen and ignored. However, the more I read, the more Mieville made it clear that it really was more of a mental separation.
Thanks for this analysis. It helped me make more sense of what I was reading.