The City and the City, by China Mieville

[rachelmanija]

I adore The Scar and Perdido Street Station for the gonzo worldbuilding, the overheated invention, the absolutely convincing details of their fascinating settings, the larger-than-life characters, and the sense of liveliness and fun that sits in odd tension with Mieville’s often determinedly-brutal treatment of his characters.

I don’t find Mieville more didactic than an awful lot of authors, but other readers often find him so-- largely because, I think, he’s promoting a point of view which jumps out because it’s out of the American mainstream, whereas books which push more US-mainstream values like “normalcy and happiness is one man and one woman getting together” or “social justice is achievable by individual effort” don’t appear didactic because those values are so ingrained into that mainstream that they become invisible as didacticism, no matter how hard the authors push them.* Your mileage may vary.

* I just realized that my point echoes a crucial element of the conceit of The City and the City. Well, it’s a very rich and interesting conceit, with multiple implications.

I seem to know more people who absolutely loathe Mieville’s work than like it, with the exception of Un Lun Dun, which up till now was the one book of his that I didn’t like. (Twee.) So this review is even more YMMV than usual.

The City and the City rests upon an absolutely marvelous conceit, which is not a surprise twist but becomes clear in general terms within about the first 20 pages. I mention this because most reviews treat it as a giant spoiler, which I think does the book a disservice. Nonetheless, YMMV, so I’m putting it under a cut. In my opinion, nothing under the cut is truly spoilery.

The novel is a police procedural told in a world-weary voice by a world-weary cop. The voice was a little inconsistent—it directly addressed readers who were unfamiliar with the setting, explicitly explaining how it worked, which led me to expect that there would be some in-story explanation of who those readers were supposed to be. There wasn’t. The cop sometimes uses British slang, which probably would have been less jarring if it was used more, in which case it would have become an invisible convention. Its occasional use startled me every time, considering that the manuscript was presumably translated from his own language. He also had a remarkably educated vocabulary, but only occasionally, so that too seemed inconsistent. (Or possibly “machicolation” is a much more common term than I realize.)

It is a heavily crosshatched street -- clutch by clutch of architecture broken by alterity, even in a few spots house by house. The local buildings are taller by a floor or three than the others, so Besz juts up semiregularly and the roofscape is almost a machicolation.

But those are all minor quibbles. My big problem with the book was that the voice, plot, and characters didn’t fit the absurdist/surrealist/satirical premise, which was like something out of Jorge Luis Borges or Thomas Pynchon, and begged for a similarly lush or gonzo style—the exact style, in fact, that Mieville is really good at. Instead, it’s deliberately flat and underplayed. The cop has few traits. Most of the characters have few traits. The two cities themselves are not very vivid or detailed compared to what I’ve seen Mieville do in other books. The conclusion is deliberately anticlimactic.

Subtlety is just not Mieville’s strong suit, and I say that in all fondness. This premise applied to the wild inventiveness of his New Crobuzon books, or even given an extravagant plot, characters, and voice—which I know he can do—in an otherwise realistic setting would have worked marvelously. As it is, the premise and its working-out is fabulous, and everything else is dull.



The two cities are co-existing in the same space. Not, although maybe you could read it that way, in any sort of cross-dimensional way—they are simply considered two cities because the inhabitants of each learn to “unsee” (ignore) the other, except when they formally cross the border. Of course this is completely unbelievable in any realistic sense, and is basically absurdism or surrealism, a thought-experiment or a metaphor externalized—as I wrote, I think using a relatively realistic mode for the rest of the book was an enormous mistake-- but if you accept it for the purposes of the book, it’s played out very convincingly and intriguingly.

Comments

[starlady]

I think, he’s promoting a point of view which jumps out because it’s out of the American mainstream, whereas books which push more US-mainstream values like “normalcy and happiness is one man and one woman getting together” or “social justice is achievable by individual effort” don’t appear didactic because those values are so ingrained into that mainstream that they become invisible as didacticism, no matter how hard the authors push them.*

I think you're probably right here. Miéville's lack of mercy towards his characters is one of the things I admire about him as a writer. That said, particularly in Perdido Street Station, I do remember there being a lot of sociological cant that sat oddly amongst the rest of the story--much like "machicolation"--which I think could have been pruned without detracting from the larger points. Though maybe that, and "machicolation", and the characters in TC&tC lacking traits are all intentional? I kind of actually suspect so, given the intentionality of everything else Miéville does in his books.

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, I assume everything was done very intentionally. Though I do tend to feel that he could always use a second editing pass.

The Iron Council was the one where I started skimming the political rants.

[jesuswasbatman]

I remember reading in an interview a while back that Iron Council was his first book to be strongly professionally edited. I didn't think it made a lot of difference.

[rachelmanija]

How odd! I actually thought it seemed less edited.

[dsgood]

The same device was used in a pulpish, rather American novel by Gordon R. Dickson: Delusion World, I think.

[loligo]

My big problem with the book was that the voice, plot, and characters didn’t fit the absurdist/surrealist/satirical premise, which was like something out of Jorge Luis Borges or Thomas Pynchon, and begged for a similarly lush or gonzo style—the exact style, in fact, that Mieville is really good at. Instead, it’s deliberately flat and underplayed. The cop has few traits. Most of the characters have few traits. The two cities themselves are not very vivid or detailed compared to what I’ve seen Mieville do in other books. The conclusion is deliberately anticlimactic.

I just finished TC & TC today. I agree that it felt quite thin by the end -- and "more style" would have been one way to deal with this, but I actually would have preferred him to go with "more heart". I kept wishing that em_h had written the book instead, that the characters were more fully human and the true costs of unseeing more deeply explored. (I thought it was quite striking, actually, how many elements from her three novels appeared in this one, and that's why I kept expecting things to follow the directions that she would take, and they hardly ever did. Unsurprisingly.)

Like the first unificationist they talk to -- he says that he more than anyone needs to take care not breach, because he's always watched, and there's potentially a whole very moving life story there: he longs to see the other city so much that he's willing to endanger himself, make a fool of himself, and yet because of that he won't allow himself any of the tiny cheats that ordinary citizens take all the time. I wanted to sink into moments like that and really inhabit them, and come away feeling like I had gained some perspective on something, and the story just didn't do that.

[rachelmanija]

Yes, that's a good point. It is indeed reminiscent of her novels (except hers are better).

Can you imagine what it would have been like if Mieville could have pulled off an ending with the impact of the one in Where She Was Standing?

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad to hear that if I didn't like Un Lun Dun I might still like his other works. I think "twee" is a good summing-up of why I didn't like it, even though it had so many fantasy elements I love and even though he explicitly acknowledged his debt to Gaiman's stuff. It just tried soooo hard, it made me tired to read it.

I will pick up Perdido Street Station one of these days.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Un Lun Dun and The City and the City are not very characteristic, while his other books seem more of a piece. I really like Perdido Street Station and The Scar. The Iron Council has some wonderful bits but doesn't work as well as a whole.

[redsnowpenguin.livejournal.com]

the conceit...sounds like something thought up after a really ecstatic reaction to Italo Calvino...?

I will go read the book on this alone~

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Very possibly!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The central premise of this book reminded me of Augustine's two cities, but given a sfnal explanation rather than metaphysical. But storywise, yeah, I finally bombed out when I realized he wasn't going to go anywhere with it.

I need to try the older ones again--even if I found the Marxism shoveled in lumpen-fashion, and there was a whole lot of horror, there was also a whole lot of energy.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting. I also loved Perdido Street Station and I even more loved The Scar. (Less so Iron Council, although it was disappointing mostly in comparison to the others rather than on its own merits.) Haven't read Un Lun Dun.

And yeah, it's the over-the-top worldbuilding and plot and characters that does it for me: I think in part I loved the way that it felt like he wasn't stingy with the awesome (and awesomely weird) ideas. He could've written a whole trilogy just about the slake moths or the garuda or the Weaver or the handlingers or Lin, and yet they're all in the one book, plus a score of other ideas. I liked that a lot.

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

"I don’t find Mieville more didactic than an awful lot of authors, but other American readers I know often find him so-- largely because, I think, he’s promoting a point of view which jumps out because it’s out of the American mainstream, whereas books which push more US-mainstream values like “normalcy and happiness is one man and one woman getting together” or “social justice is achievable by individual effort” don’t appear didactic because those values are so ingrained into that mainstream that they become invisible as didacticism, no matter how hard the authors push them.*"

Yes, yes, and yes! So tired of readers thinking neoliberal individualism is just the way the world is, instead of being an ideological orientation of its own. At least Mieville *knows* when he's being didactic, as opposed to writing that way and thinking it's just natural.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's a cool conceit, and I think is actually something we see (and even hear commented on) all the time--but to a way lesser degree. If you're used to looking for subway stations, you see subway stations; if you're used to traveling by private limo, you may not even realize that subway stations exist.

I remember my parents saying they never noticed the baby aisle in the supermarket until they had small children... and then it disappeared for them after we grew up past babyhood.

So I can totally get behind the idea of two cities coexisting.

--Too bad he didn't write up the story in a style that suits his invention.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any other Mieville - I read this because the premise sounded interesting (I like Borges, for example).

I think my reaction was fairly similar to yours, overall. The premise was interesting, the ramifications were interesting, and the story seemed as if it were going to go in interesting directions. But it didn't, which ultimately made things seem a bit silly. (When the American executive has his little rant, near the end, I found myself thinking "you know, he has a point.")

I am not entirely convinced that the realistic mode was a mistake, at least early on. I thought the first half or so of the book worked well, but that was with the expectation that it would get a lot weirder later on, which it didn't. In retrospect I suppose it works less well.

As for inspiration, Evelyn Leeper (I think it was) posted on r.a.sf.w about a police case in one of those spots on the Belgium-Netherlands border that is full of enclaves and exclaves which sounded as if it could have been an inspiration for the book. (There are apparently buildings there which are partly in one country and partly in the other, which means the police have to be very careful when looking for evidence.)

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Does the book read to you more like science fiction or more like fantasy?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Neither - there's absolutely no supernatural or more-than-modern technological component to it.

In terms of tone, Mieville is imitating mystery fiction, not fantasy or sf.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Some of Breach's capabilities seem to call for more-than-modern technology, but not to a vast extent, and that's not really the focus of the book. (So I am quibbling - one of my worst habits.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I wondered about that, but in retrospect I think it's actually tricks of perception: if Breach doesn't appear instantly... no one notices, because they shouldn't have noticed the entire incident anyway. And Breach seems to be blurry and moving faster than normal because you're not supposed to be seeing them anyway, and besides Breach is supposed to have supernatural powers.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

After further thought, I think it's either that or an example of Hollywood Technology - you know the sort of thing I mean, in movies and TV shows where spies and police and so forth have technology that at base isn't any better than real technology, except that it works all the time, it works really fast, it works in a very automated way, it looks cool, etc.

I imagine Mieville did that deliberately.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

On a tangent - given what you like about Mieville's other books, have you tried Catherynne Valente's Palimpsest?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I have. I love the idea, but I bounce off her prose style.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Oh well. Clearly I need to improve my algorithm for recommending books to you. :)